All IT Wants for Christmas

Wish: Service Gap Elimination

If Antonio Federal Credit Union's Emerging Channels Innovation Architect and CTO Adele Glenn had one IT wish it would be eliminating service gaps across all self-service, face-to-face and voice-to-voice platforms.

"The ability to allow our members to conduct business with us in any manner based on their own personal preferences," said Glenn. "For example, having the ability for members to manage their credit and debit card from mobile, open new accounts online or cash a check at 2 a.m."

The $2.9 billion Antonio FCU, based San Antonio, Texas and supports 693 employees, 250,000 members and16 branches, has a shot of having its wish realized, said Adele.

"We are gaining momentum through various project implementations and R&D," said Glenn. "Advanced card control in mobile, deposit automation capabilities in our ATMs, experimenting with ITM technology, and refresh of existing programs and apps will help bridge the current gaps and create new capabilities for our members in the New Year."

Wish: Streamlined Mobile App

With 280,000 members, Kinecta Federal Credit Union's CIO and Chief Strategy Officer Sharon Moseley said she wishes for a "faster" and "slicker" mobile app.

"A mobile membership app that fully integrated into all of our core banking, mobile banking and lending systems," she said.

Headquartered in Manhattan Beach, Calif., the $3.7 billion credit union, which supports 280,000 members, 1,000 employees at 22 locations, has a wish that isn't so farfetched. Last year, Kinecta Federal CU built a business intelligence platform, which required integrating data from 26 disparate systems. The project included an app that allows the CU to have a 360 degree view of member activity with one sign-on.

"It facilitates the easy capture of member conversations and identification of member needs and then tracks the needs to fulfillment," said Moseley. "It has helped facilitate our cultural shift to a needs-based, member/customer-centric model."

Moseley added that it is "highly likely" that the new mobile app will launch in 2016.

Wish: Reduced Inefficiencies

TruMark Financial Credit Union SVP Information Technology Patrick O'Halloran said he has a few wishes for 2016, but top among them is going paperless.

"One of my wishes is to reduce some of the inefficiencies throughout the credit union as we continue to rely too heavily on paper to complete some of our internal processes," he said. "Many of our current processes are tied to physical paper being passed throughout the organization. As we grow and our branch networks expand, we need to change or build processes that can be completed electronically."

The $1.6 billion Trevose, Penn.-based TruMark FCU supports 112,000 Members at 18 branches. O'Halloran explained that the CU spent 2015 reviewing Enterprise Content Management and Workflow solutions from a number of vendors.

"In 2016, we plan to select and implement a new solution or make significant upgrades to our current system," he said.

Wish: Cloud-based Service Bus

Baxter Credit Union's CIO Jeff Johnson couldn't stop at one wish, he has three.

"First, for our industry software providers to provide affordable Software as a Services (SaaS) solutions," said Johnson. "This pulls legacy applications out of our organizations and puts the software maintenance in the hands of the experts."

His second wish is for credit unions to "get out of the infrastructure business" by migrating to cloud-based infrastructure providers. "The extendibility, resilience, and on-demand processing enable us to grow and expand without the endless cycle and distraction of infrastructure upgrades."

Finally, Johnson, who is also the vice chair on the CUNA Technology Council, said his third wish includes his first two wishes (so really one big wish): the creation of a cloud based Service Bus.

"The Service Bus would take the complexity and cost out of each credit union and could enable a shared bus across cores, vendors and credit unions," he said. "This would greatly improve speed-to-market and the spectrum of products and services we could provide."

For the Vernon Hills, Ill.-based CU that supports 475 employees, 203,000 members at 39 locations, the likelihood of all three wishes coming true will require collective industry willingness.

"Insofar as the migration of infrastructure to the cloud, each credit union must move at its own pace. BCU started the migration in 2013 and we will continue in 2016 with the goal of being out of the infrastructure business," he said. "The industry service bus is a long-game; it is key to alleviating the time, expense and complexity of software integration."

Wish: New Project Tracking Solution

CO-OP Financial Service's CIO Terrance Griffin has one IT wish for 2016: a new machine learning system for project tracking.

The Rancho Cucamonga, Calif-based organization is a financial technology provider for more than 3,500 credit union clients. CO-OP also manages CO-OP Shared Branching with 5,300 branches as well as CO-OP ATM with 30,000 machines.

Griffin explained the benefits of a new system would include: centralization, for better tracking across the enterprise; real-time monitoring of key performance indicators, and a dashboard for monitoring queues, service level agreements and staff performance; a feedback loop that incorporates a built-in survey engine to ensure that managers and supervisors can review client feedback and address issues quicker; and knowledge management via a database to track issues, preventing recurrence and accelerating resolution.

The probability of this wish becoming a reality in the coming year is about 40%, noted Griffin.

Wish: Virtual Desktops

With 130 employees, Pioneer Federal Credit Union's IT Manager Jeffrey Smith has one wish for 2016: virtual desktops throughout the entire credit union corporation.

"The idea of virtual computers represents an ability to more effectively manage the end-user's computing experience. If teller computers at a branch all need a new piece of software, the virtual environment allows for this software to be easily pushed to all computing devices simultaneously," said Smith. "Another advantage, if using zero-net clients, is that the end-user doesn't have a computer, and therefore has an extremely limited potential of problems arising due to the computer itself."

For the $381 million CU, based in Mountain Home, Idaho, the chance of realizing virtual desktops throughout the organization in 2016 may require a Christmas miracle.

"A 100% deployment in 2016 is very unlikely, because of the cost. Several of the branches have recently been upgraded with new computers. Replacing these new computers with zero-net clients isn't good business," said Smith. "A virtual deployment could still be accomplished, using the existing computers, but eliminates one of the advantages of a zero-net client virtual environment."

Wish: Individual Tech Training

Putting aside his wish for peace on earth, Y-12 Federal Credit Union's SVP and CTO Todd Richardson said he wishes he had more time for individual technical training.

"This has always been a struggle in IT organizations keep up with advancements in the field while maintaining the organization," he said. "This year we are making efforts to identify specific training they will take in the coming year which benefits the organization directly."

The Oakridge, Tenn.-based CU supports 225employees and more than 100,000 members at 14 locations. Over the last year, Richardson and his team have been busy implementing several new technologies.

"We installed a pilot NCR Interactive Video Teller Branch with Symitar Core integration," said Richardson. "We also installed Symitar's Advanced Reporting for Credit Unions (ARCU) solution and the Symitar Synapsys solution."

When asked the chances of individual IT training being enhanced in 2016, he responded: "It's very likely."

Wish: Enhanced Cyber Security

PSCU's Chief Information Security Officer Gene Fredriksen's holiday wish is expansive: For the whole global security industry would be an accurate, timely, reliable source of actionable security intelligence.

"Today, intelligence has been productized, and as such is not conducive to widespread dissemination of consistent information. There can be weeks of lag time between sources passing alerts and advisories to its subscribers," said Fredriksen. "Unfortunately, the result of this today is an inconsistent level of protection across the internet, leaving gaps, which can be exploited and subsequently leveraged by criminals."

While optimistic, Fredriksen isn't hopeful that Santa will leave this "wish" under his Christmas tree. "The best hope for a consistent intelligence feed is the government, particularly Department of Homeland Security. However, the hurdles with getting private industry cleared to accept sensitive threat information has slowed the pace of rolling anything out to the masses to a crawl."

When it comes to cyber security, the St. Petersburg, Fla-based CUSO, owned by 800 member credit unions, has been proactive. In 2015, PSCU enhanced its Security Analytics system, which enabled the correlation of disparate log and system feeds turning data into actionable alerts.

"From an operational perspective, driving down the false positive rate allows users to have a higher confidence level in the alerts being generated, and it yields better use of critical resources and faster response to true security issues," said Fredriksen. "The system has also simplified compliance reporting, allowing us to quickly produce customized reports as required. This continued investment in resources to combat cyber security threats has improved our people, process and technology systems targeted at protecting the information entrusted to us by our credit union owners."

Wish: Utilize Server Failover

In many cases, IT wishes are a product of realized operational successes. To this end, Martin Federal Credit Union Technology Administrator Josue Madera's wish is to utilize the CU's existing server failover by using Jack Henry's Enterprise Conversion Solution between two Symitar servers.

"This will help reduce the amount of time it takes to upgrade as well as prevent downtime triggered by hardware or connectivity issues," said Madera. "We continue to strive for excellence and technology is our gateway to meet our members need."

The wishes don't stop there for the $112 million Orlando, Fla.-based CU that supports 44 employees and 13,359 members at four locations. Madera explained Apple Watch app and Android Pay are among earmarked initiatives.

"Just like the bigger credit unions and banks, Martin FCU is on top of the game with solutions like P2P, Apple Pay, new IBM server with Symitar, and EMV chip embedded cards," said Madera. "Our standards are high and members experience is even higher. Jack Henry's Symitar core processing solution gives us the flexibility to expedite solutions."