How One Credit Union Spreads AI Across the Whole Organization

Credit unions can grow with new members, and assets swell from the millions to the billions of dollars, but when it comes to technology and mobile banking, what got you “here” won’t get you “there.”

The personalized experience that’s the hallmark of these smaller financial institutions (FIs) must be embedded into the mobile, tech-driven app interactions that members have with credit union (CU) employees, growing and changing alongside members’ needs.

For Florida-based VyStar Credit Union, with 1 million members and $14 billion in assets, advanced technologies — including artificial intelligence (AI) — have positioned the FI for continued growth, Lisa Cochran, chief information officer told PYMNTS.

Focusing on Ease of Use and Data Security

It’s a firm-wide effort, ranging from the C-suite to customer service.

In the bid to make its app and digital engagement stand out, she said, “we’re not competing just with banks; we’re competing with retailers, because everybody is so used to the ease and the simplicity of technology.”

They want that simplicity from their credit unions, too, she said. In the meantime, there’s the challenge of protecting data even as CUs seek to innovate their product and service roadmaps.

Information security, Cochran said, “is an area I’m really focused on, because the bad guys are always trying to get in and take money from someone through malicious intent.”

Cochran told PYMNTS that AI has been a key component in securing member data, and the firm’s use of WitnessAI helps monitor and make sure the credit union’s employee base is using generative AI effectively, in keeping with board-level policy on AI and AI usage.

VyStar is also leveraging technology to ensure service reliability (with network uptime of 99.97%) and AI to help its front-line employees have productive interactions with members through chats, telephone and the branch channels.

“The most important employees are the ones that speak to our branch members,” Cochran said. The app itself has garnered a 4.7 out of 5 rating, which she said is testament to meeting members’ needs.

Looking Ahead

The technology roadmap includes what Cochran said is “insourcing our mobile and online banking application through a perpetual licensing agreement, which allows us to have a lot more control over that technology and allow us to get more capabilities into our members’ hands more quickly.”

The focus on technology and security extends well beyond the back office.

Cochran said that VyStar has “addressed information security as an organization.”

The CU has gamified information security knowledge, she said, with a March Madness-like tournament that seeks to champion the teams that find the most phishing e-mails. Other activities include a “virtual escape room” focused on security and “beat the hacker contests.” Employee training in data security is wide-ranging, with annual tests.

The teamwork emphasis has paid dividends, as the company was recognized late last year by Computerworld as one of the top three places to work in IT.

Tech-savviness extends to the younger generations as well: VyStar has been involved in educating students throughout the communities it serves, placing high school technology interns in its branches. VyStar also partners with STEM2Hub (where Cochran sits on the board of directors) to further tech-based knowledge among students, including through summer camps that VyStar employees’ kids can attend.

“These are ways to make some of the things you have to do quite fun — while at the same time making us more secure,” she told PYMNTS. With the widening embrace of new technologies, “We want to be able to capitalize on the value that AI brings — but in ways that are safe and protect data at the same time.”