NCR Atelos and Arizona Financial CU Team on Self-Service Banking

Arizona Financial Credit Union (AZFCU) has launched a partnership with retail banking firm NCR Atleos.

According to a Tuesday (April 9) news release, AZFCU has picked Atleos’ ATM as a Service (ATMaaS) offering to boost operational efficiencies within its self-service banking channel.

“As many of the credit union’s ATMs were reaching end of life, AZFCU evaluated how to provide strong self-service experiences while supporting ongoing growth now and into the future,” the release said.

The release added the AZFCU chose Atleos’ ATMaaS solution, trusting the company’s experts to manage its fleets distribution, installation, maintenance and cash management.

“As business priorities shift, financial institutions like AZFCU are recognizing the value that relying on trusted partners to run the ATM fleet brings,” said Diego Navarrete, executive vice president for global sales for Atleos.

“By outsourcing the management and maintenance of the critical self-service channel to Atleos, AZFCU will be able to lower costs and focus greater resources on digital and growth priorities.”

The partnership comes at a time when credit unions are beginning to embrace innovations that had once been the province of FinTech startups and banking giants, as Scott Young, senior vice president for emerging services at PSCU/Co-op Solutions, told PYMNTS last month.

“The pandemic told us that member self-service is now, and it’s going to be the future,” Young said, adding that digitization is “the hallmark” of most successful credit unions, helping them meet the needs of their members to “save time and make life more convenient.”

The effort to embrace tech-forward initiatives has credit unions attract younger, more tech-savvy members while also deepening engagement with their existing members, he added.

“More investment into innovation equals less membership churn,” Young said, noting that winning “share of mind” is crucial for younger demographics. “Sometimes credit unions will deprioritize installs, upgrades or new versions of solutions. When that technical debt continues to compound, it not only creates a resource concern, both human and financial, but it can be a real obstacle to deploying new products and features for members.”

NCR Atleos’ partnership with AZFCU comes two months after the company was picked by Grow Financial Federal Credit Union to enhance its self-service banking offerings.

“We exist to serve people, not profit. This commitment drives us to make sure our self-service banking options are reliable, member-centric and easy to use,” Doug Tilden, executive vice president and chief financial officer at the credit union, said at the time.