LATHRUP VILLAGE, Mich. — To drive deeper member relationships and gain deposits from competitors, Michigan First CU has upgraded its home banking system with several new features — one of which allows members to access their accounts at other financials within the online banking interface.
"Members now have the ability to input account information from another financial and transfer money," explained MFCU CEO Michael Poulos. "We have not estimated how much money we will get by adding this capability, but we know it will happen."
Poulos expects members to treat the home banking service as a financial management tool. "We need to gain greater share of wallet with our members, especially with generations X and Y," he said. "If we don't win these next generations we are toast."
New features include alerts to help members stay on budget, remote deposit, account-to-account transfers inside or outside the CU, graphing and reporting of financial activity, free bill pay, live chat support, and free credit scores.
"The advantage is if members are coming to our site for most of their financial management needs, they will do more business with us. We want to be viewed as a resource, a relevant, up-to-date financial. We need to be members' money manger."
The upgrade cost the $520-million credit union less than $50,000. "A lot less expensive than building a new home banking system," Poulos shared. "We partnered with Jwaala (based in Austin) and added their MoneyTracker suite to our existing home banking product. We built this together. It's hard to say what it might cost another credit union to do the same thing since it's a customized solution."
Poulos acknowledged that the credit union hopes to boost its current 25% home banking penetration to 50% within the next four to give years, which will also lead to an even better net operating expense ratio, which now stands at 2.5%. "That's not a bad thing these days," Poulos said. "But we see the real advantage from this in growing our business."
Currently MFCU claims 55% of its members' checking business and averages over three products per account. Poulos hopes to drive that number even higher the CU adds a feature that will allow members to apply for a loan and close it all online.
