Credit Unions Trade Complexity for Simplicity and Win Customer Loyalty

“Complexity powers the status quo,” Karen Webster wrote in a recent column. And in financial services — particularly for credit unions —  complexity in the back office, and in member-facing interactions, the status quo is no longer acceptable.

The constant flow of interactions between consumers, businesses and CUs demands a seamless and friction-free experience — akin to eCommerce, where just a few clicks of a mouse or taps on a screen get things done.

To that end, Cody Banks, SVP of product enablement and growth at Velera, said in a “What’s Next in Payments” conversation, “Simple is the new loyalty.”

For credit unions, he said, the goal is to make member experiences as simple as possible. CUs can take a page from the intuitive nature of interactions with eCommerce, where it takes only a few minutes (or less) for users to browse for what they want, and get what they want.

The Biggest Compliment

“However we can make those experiences as simple as possible, not only for our clients but for the consumer,” Banks said, “that’s where we get the biggest wins … and the biggest compliment we can get is, ‘That was easy.’”

Most credit unions are in the same boat, Banks said, mapping out new journeys for their members, examining the various touch points confronting those members along the way, while finding initiatives and technologies that can reduce those touch points or make them more digital — where paper statements and letters can be crystallized into emails or text messages, along with fraud alerts that can keep members engaged with their credit union.

Velera, for its part, has been working with its credit union partners — through a business-in-a-box approach for small business clients — to simplify their operations and their applications in a bid to stay at the leading edge of payments innovation.

“We’ve been successfully moving into an agile framework,” said Banks, who added that CUs must be mindful of delivering the right financial products and services across a variety of channels — from in-branch settings to mobile devices to ATMs to contact centers.

“If I’ve called in and already authenticated, I shouldn’t have to continue to answer the same questions over and over again,” he said. “We’re making sure that we are creating processes in the ecosystem that make sense.” He pointed to embedded, digital lending as an example, as the application processes and underwriting can be shortened into minutes with the aid of digital credentials, where once those processes took days.

“There’s security and safety using biometrics and authentication,” he said, “with a one-stop-shop, embedded technology experience,” which helps make members feel safer as they engage with their CUs.

The same principles and ease of engagement also apply to CUs’ commercial members, Banks said, so that it becomes easier to pay employees, send out invoices, pay suppliers and have control over accounts and cards.

The embedded tools, he said, extend well beyond card issuance, security and lending. Banks told PYMNTS Velera has introduced a tool that helps credit union members navigate the cards they have on file with various merchants and providers — and with a click of a button update their credentials (or cancel the relationship). That tool, he said, helps prevent first-party fraud, while giving members a way to examine the services and products they pay for on a monthly basis, while eliminating the expenses they don’t need. The same data that underpins transactions, Banks said, can be used by CUs to reach out to members, to prod them on expenses, and perhaps consider whether those expenses might be revisited.

The general feeling toward the CU, he said, “is that they’ve got my back — that they’re using data to personalize things for me while looking out for me. … And that creates loyalty.”