Press
Credit Union Financial Exchange (CUFX) to Introduce Technological Standards to the Credit Union Industry
Mark Wolff, CUNA Communications
(202) 508-6764
mwolff@cuna.coop
Amy Nigrelli, CUNA Marketing
(608) 231-4246
anigrelli@cuna.coop
Madison, WI (May 16, 2012) – The CUNA Technology Council has recently launched a new integration standards project, CUFX (Credit Union Financial Exchange), to streamline how technology companies and credit unions connect applications like online banking and account opening into core systems.
Heather Moshier and Jeff Johnson, chair and vice chair of the CUNA Technology Council, presented an update on CUFX’s goals and recent progress to CUNA’s Board of Directors during a meeting at the most recent Governmental Affairs Conference.
“It’s a good time for this initiative,” says Bill Cheney, President and CEO of CUNA. “The board and I appreciate the Technology Council’s efforts to make improvements that will benefit the entire credit union industry.”
For credit unions to grow and remain competitive in the financial marketplace, they must continually improve their technical infrastructure. By introducing technological standards to the industry, CUFX will increase the speed of delivery of new solutions, improve user experience and credit union member satisfaction and reduce integration time and costs for application providers and core processors.
“Technology companies’ ability to innovate and quickly deliver leading-edge services is hampered by the lack of a single integration standard,” says Jeff Johnson, Vice Chair of the CUNA Technology Council. “Technology providers spend valuable resources independently customizing the same interfaces or adapters for each of their credit union clients, primarily at the expense of further refining their solutions. The standards proposed through CUFX free up more of their resources for innovation.”
Along with keeping credit unions and technology vendors on the same page, CUFX will benefit credit unions and the technology industry by:
- Simplifying integration and reducing initial and ongoing costs of independent vendor-provided and credit union-created offerings
- Increasing the speed of delivery of new business functions across the credit union industry
- Improving member experience and employee efficiency
- Freeing vendors from repetitive, time-consuming, low-impact customization, so they can focus their efforts on application innovation
Initially, CUFX will focus on new applications or existing transaction sets that support new initiatives, like PFM, membership applications and mobile payments. Building on these new key initiatives, a new standard will be iteratively created so back-end systems are speaking the same language. Future initiatives may include re-engineering existing transaction sets.
“Ultimately, the success of the CUFX initiative will depend greatly upon the dedication and commitment of our technology vendors and credit union professionals,” continues Johnson. “CUFX needs the resources, ideas and expertise that these professional bring to the table to ensure our strategic plans are on target and that our initiative proceeds in a direction that is both effective and beneficial for all groups involved.”
For more details about CUFX, a list of credit unions and technology companies that are currently involved, and information about how you can support the effort, visit www.cufxstandards.com or e-mail info@cufxstandards.com.
About CUNA:
With its network of affiliated state credit union leagues, Credit Union National Association (CUNA) serves 90 percent of America’s 7,400 state and federally chartered credit unions, which are owned by 95 million consumer members. Credit unions are not-for-profit cooperatives providing affordable financial services to people from all walks of life. For more information about CUNA, visit www.cuna.org or the CUNAverse blog and follow @CUNAverse on Twitter. For more information about credit unions, visit www.aSmarterChoice.org and follow @asmarterchoice on Twitter.
About the CUNA Councils:
The CUNA Councils is the premier organization for credit union executives. With more than 5,350 members across the U.S from credit unions large and small, the Councils provide targeted networking support, best practices, current information and professional development tools for credit union professionals. For more information, visit www.cunacouncils.org.