In 1976, Jimmy Carter became president, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer, Paul McCartney and Wings had the top song and Northwest Federal Credit Union installed its current core computing system.
Today, Symitar, a division of Jack Henry (JKHY), announced that the $2.2 billion credit union will convert to its Episys core system in-house. The more than 120,000-member credit union, originally chartered to serve the CIA, identified five main areas — efficiency, maintenance, compliance, strategy and service — in which its legacy system was limiting progress and performance.
Gerrianne "Winky" Burks, chief executive officer at Northwest FCU, stated in a press release, "The complexity of our existing core combined with the number of ancillary systems made critical updates nearly impossible in this regulatory environment. It was requiring an ever increasing allocation of resources just to maintain the system and keep it in compliance, and development of new products had to take a back seat. Even more important, our standards for system infrastructure and security are of the greatest consideration with the nature of our membership, and Symitar was able to deliver on all of our requirements in this area. We know that this solution will provide a better member experience, enable us to be quicker to market with new offerings, and provide us with new efficiencies."
With the new system, Northwest FCU expects to reduce reporting time from days to minutes and to no longer need IT assistance. The credit union also expects to gain a comprehensive view of the member's entire relationship on a single screen, much more than just the balance snapshot it had before.
In addition to Episys, Northwest FCU will install an array of complementary Symitar solutions, including ARCU data warehousing, iTalk IVR, DataLink CU automated call reporting, and components of the Synergy Enterprise Content Management platform.
