PHOENIX -
The account-opening time had increased in recent years thanks in part to rising regulatory requirements, including the Patriot Act and OFAC (Office of Foreign Asset Control). Post-Sept. 11 security brought a need to validate Social Security numbers and verification of other identity documents.
To reduce the time spent opening an account while ensuring compliance, the $1.7-billion CU contracted with USERS' Maestro Projects Group to integrate the many systems needed to enroll members and open accounts.
The Maestro Group's new account opening module is known as "Enrollment Workflow." The module includes communications with third parties for functions such as identity verification for OFAC compliance, including credit bureau checking and postal address standardization.
According to Arizona Federal, all of these steps now take place automatically, without the member service representative having to memorize lengthy procedures or enter member data multiple times. The data is entered once and all steps are guided by the module, resulting in a faster, more accurate process.
Kevin Bingham, Arizona Federal's AVP of project management, told the Credit Union Journal the new account opening procedure does not have a defined ROI as of yet, but said the credit union has seen the benefit of reduced set-up time.
In addition, he noted, less training time is needed for frontline staff. Previously, Arizona Federal's training document for account opening was 95 pages long.
"Today, Enrollment Workflow is very intuitive-simply go to a screen, get the information from the member and the process is done," he said. "They cannot deviate from it. This leads to greater consistency, as every account is opened the same way every time."
Prior to implementing Enrollment Workflow management for the $1.7-billion CU had the opportunity to sit down with the Maestro Group, which demonstrated its template for new account opening and the information needed. Bingham said Maestro Group walked the credit union through the entire set-up process.
"We made some revisions-every credit union is a little bit different-but Maestro does the hard work such as going out to third-party organizations to ensure compliance with regulations. The most important thing is making sure accounts are set up correctly, the second-most important is compliance with government regulations."
According to Bingham, negotiations went on for nearly two years before an agreement was reached in January.
He said implementation began in early February, and the module went online June 1. As of Oct. 26, Arizona Federal has opened more than 9,000 accounts with this process. The credit union serves 241,000 members at 25 branches.
"We have improved the time needed and definitely improved quality, because important steps are not forgotten," reported Bingham. "With improved address information, there is less likelihood of returned mail, which saves money on postage."
Bingham was the project manager on the team that implemented Enrollment Workflow, and he said feedback from trainers has been very positive because the module is so easy to understand. "From an operational perspective, all the feedback from the folks at the branches who use the tool to set up accounts [is that they] love it."
Maestro Group was "outstanding" to work with, he continued. Bingham said Maestro takes the approach that anything is possible. "They have a positive attitude about solving problems, which I think is important."
In the coming months Arizona Federal has three additional projects scheduled with the Maestro Group, including one that will extend the new account opening process to automatically open a sub-share account and order a debit card for the member.
Another is an interface with Experian, which will pull identity information from the person's credit file.
"Now that we have the set-up process in place, these steps will improve everything," said Bingham.
Joe Rizzo, vice president of operations for the Maestro Projects Group, a department within Valley Forge, Penn.-based USERS, told the Credit Union Journal it has 24 Maestro credit union clients, 20 of which use Enrollment Workflow.
"Arizona Federal is a great client," he said. "It is a $1-billion-plus credit union that has seen easily quantifiable results, such as cutting employee time. It has been a big win for us. They told us the training learning curve has been tremendous."
Rizzo described Enrollment Workflow as a "wizard-like" approach to the account opening process. He said the MSR is asked a series of credit union-configured questions, and it automatically contacts third-party suppliers with the same information for verification steps.
"The user sees a series of screens that guide him or her through the account opening process."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
www.azfcu.org
www.users.com
www.experian.com
