Credit unions need to gear up now for the next wave of innovation on the Internet.
"We haven't done everything we can do," asserted Jamie Valentine, network manager at $850-million University of Wisconsin CU here. "The Internet is a much greater resource than we have imagined."
Certainly, the Internet is a proven technology: More than 93% of credit unions with assets over $25 million offer Internet banking, according to Callahan and Associates.
And nearly one-third of all American adults bank online, according to the Washington, D.C.-based research firm Pew Internet & American Life Project.
The radical technology has allowed members to instantly pay their bills from work, download their transactions at 5 a.m. from home or chat online to apply for a loan-all at an operating cost of a few pennies per transaction.
But some credit unions are already thinking beyond today's Internet.
What's the next big thing after the Net? Here's how some CU executives responded:
There are cameras, cameras everywhere at Mountain America CU (MACU). Branch managers have Internet Protocol cameras tied to their IP telephones, and two branches sport video phones for members, according to Ray Carsey, vice president, technology, at the $1.8-billion CU.
It seems that people are happy to use video when they can't speak face-to-face, Carsey explained.
Although MACU introduced the cameras to facilitate remote training sessions, "we found, in addition, that remote branch managers use the video phones to speak with each other and with employees at headquarters," he said.
Even MACU executives and real estate agents are traveling less in favor of using the video phones, Carsey added.
And the human resources department uses the phones to interview job candidates.
"Eventually I'd love to see video delivered over the Internet to the member's phone," Carsey added. "The call center could have some video agents who could see the member, and vice versa."
Whereas the Internet has helped CUs reach beyond the physical branch, it has also created some headaches that still need attention, according to Kevin Dougherty, senior vice president of information services at $1-billion CFE FCU in Orlando, Fla.
"We've got firewalls, intrusion detection, logs, virus protection, passwords, multi-factor authentication... now we need someone to manage all this stuff," Dougherty said. "A growing concern of ours is to find someone who is on top of information security and is keeping staff trained," he said.
Mark Matthews thinks that the Internet is big enough to take on a heavier load.
"Let's leverage the power and connectivity of the Internet," said Matthews, vice president of IT at $675-million Summit CU in Madison, Wis.
Matthews said vendors may soon use the Internet's growing bandwidth to take some of the weight off of CUs. Vendors will use the additional bandwidth to host more and more solutions, from loan processing systems down to run-of-the-mill office productivity software, via web services technology, Matthews said.
"If the vendor is hosting the solution, credit unions won't have to make the same investment in IT staff and technical support," he explained. "Web services will have quite an impact on small credit unions as we see the cost and support model change.
"In terms of connectivity, members will start using the same, browser-based applications that our staff uses," continued Matthews. "For example, the lending department and the member could be looking at the same mortgage application interface."
CUJ Resources
For info on this story:
* CFE FCU www.cfefcu.com
* Mountain America CU www.macu.com
* Summit CU www.summitcreditunion.com
* University of Wisconsin CU www.uwcu.org
