CheckAlt, CU Prodigy To Provide CUs With Digital Loan Payment Processing

CheckAlt, which provides payment and item processing for banks and credit unions (CUs), announced it has formed an alliance with credit union service organization (CUSO) CU Prodigy to advance CU’s digital transformations.

The company said the arrangement is designed especially to handle loan payment processing services.

CheckAlt’s LoanPay payment processing platform lets credit unions meet the needs of their members. CU Prodigy sought to work with them to help credit unions streamline their operations that allows for payments from any place or at any time, whether in person, over the phone to a call center or interactive voice response, online or SMS-text.

“Credit unions continue to seek opportunities to serve their members wherever they are,” said Amber Harsin, CUDE and CEO of CU Prodigy. “We are excited to enhance our suite of services to credit unions through our partnership with CheckAlt to support all our credit unions in their commitment to providing anytime, anywhere service.”

CheckAlt CIO Ram Bajaj  spoke of the challenge facing financial institutions — tackling innovation while also balancing consumer demands with the needs of regulators — in an interview with PYMNTS earlier this month.

And while this tension can hinder their progress, Bajaj says the modern payments world doesn’t allow for a “do nothing” option, as the dual requirements from consumers and regulators simply cut off that possibility.

“A lot of the big banks are going to miss out,” Bajaj said, noting that once they can get products into consumers’ hands, they have advantages built in with their large customer bases and reserves of consumer trust.

Credit unions are increasingly forming partnerships with other providers in an effort to offer their members end-to-end services. The PYMNTS Credit Union Tracker found that more than half of all CU members are using credit products from their competitors.

And all of this is happening as interest in credit unions is growing. The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) estimated that 378,000 new members joined American credit unions in January, up 2 percent year over year, with at least some of that growth due to people seeking financial guidance.