LOS ANGELES - Credit unions are technology copycats, too often content to follow in a single-file line behind their competitors, several IT leaders at large CUs told Credit Union Journal.
"For innovation to happen, we need to resist looking at other organizations," suggested George Kings, VP-information services at $800-million Los Angeles Firemen's CU (LAFCU) here.
Instead, LAFCU wants to be inspired by its own members, he said. Same goes for BECU in Seattle, according to Butch Leonardson, SVP, CIO at the $8.4-billion CU.
The IT Perspective
"From the IT perspective, we believe that being students of the business will help lead to innovative ideas," Leonardson explained. "We start from the member experience and work backwards into the organization."
Or, as Doug True put it: "We provide the tools for our credit union members to reach their financial goals and for our credit union teammates to effectively serve our members." True is SVP of Technovation at $1.1-billion FORUM CU in Indianapolis, Ind.
For these technology executives, serving the member, then, is the essence of technology innovation. And innovation takes on a different life at each of these diverse CUs.
FORUM eschews third-party technologies in favor of building its own platforms that suit members to a "t," according to True. For example, FORUM built the technologies that run the CU's cash and interest rewards checking as well as prize-based savings programs.
"We customized the technologies based on what members told us they were looking for in each program, rather than just deploying a solution out of the box" True said. Again, "the innovation is not the technology-instead, it's creating a unique experience for the members."
BECU, on the other hand, rarely starts from scratch, said Leonardson.
"We try to make bold moves with available technology," he said. "Frankly, most innovation comes from the willingness to do something rather than the invention of the idea."
Case in point is BECU's new third-party speech recognition system for phone banking, Leonardson continued. "Our vendor is accustomed to productivity being the driver for speech systems. But we wanted a totally different member experience, where the member feels in control, can reach a representative at any time and believes the system is better and different than other implementations they may have experienced. We had to work hard to get the vendor to understand our vision, and that it wasn't about productivity."
Kings believes that "technology has enabled us to be more innovative," and pointed to the online deposit programs pioneered by a number of CUs. "The programs are not high-tech, but it's an innovative concept to be able to post a check online and get credit immediately."
Credit unions talk pretty loosely about innovation, so LAFCU is working to solidify the concept, he added. Specifically, LAFCU is interested in creating a culture of innovation, in which the credit union establishes a process for generating and managing ideas.
An Exclusive Discussion
"We've agreed to meet to discuss innovation exclusively," said Kings. "We could start with a charter for innovation, where the innovation process is defined and is tied to our particular vision and value proposition."
The charter could include employee roles, as well, he said. "One concept is that of product manager and process owner. Specific people would be responsible for particular products and processes and would ensure the products remain competitive. They would bring ideas to the table to enhance those products and processes. "That's not something people just naturally do," Kings added.
Employee incentive programs might be a good fit for LAFCU's blossoming culture, but "that's only the tip of the iceberg in terms of how to encourage innovation," said Kings.
MORE
Read more about innovation at cujournal.com and search the following bolded terms in the archive:
Lighting the Fire
Why One CU Processor Increasingly Tells Folks To Just ‘Go Think'
7 Bright Ideas
For info on this story:
www.becu.org
www.forumcu.com
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