Five credit unions win CUNA Technology Council ‘Excellence in Technology’ award
MADISON, WI (October 2, 2015) — Unitus Community CU, Educators CU, CASE CU, Ent FCU and XCEL FCU were honored as winners of the CUNA Technology Council 2015 ‘Excellence in Technology’ awards at the Council’s 20th Annual Conference, which took place September 27-30 in Orlando, Florida.
The CUNA Technology Council award recognizes outstanding approaches to technology challenges with potential for universal application across the credit union movement. The winners for 2015 are:
- Unitus Community Credit Union in Portland, Oregon had a winning entry with their Sales and Service Referral solution. Unitus Community CU identified an opportunity to improve their sales tracking process that had many manual components with dependencies on Excel spreadsheets. In order to streamline their processes and improve the experience for members and staff, they implemented a custom integrated solution within their core called “The Hub,” noting that the perceived and proven value was critical for user adoption. After this solution was implemented, Unitus Community CU was able to incorporate better marketing campaigns, improve sales reporting and experienced improvements in their sales and service performance.
- Educators Credit Union in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin won for their submission titled “Tech IT Up a Notch,” a program they implemented with the desire to inspire cultural change that encourages innovation, promotes collaboration, and generates “buzz” for their new online channels. Educators CU arranged a two-day, high-energy event promoting creativity, encouraging collaboration, and rewarding innovative ideas. Chosen staff represented different departments or locations and promoted organizational diversity, and teams were formed to include, a great mix of teambuilding and innovation-oriented tasks. Educators CU gained great ideas of which they believe they will be able to turn into realities.
- CASE Credit Union in Lansing, Michigan is being awarded for their custom Information Systems Dashboard solution. This solution provides CASE CU a centralized location for many of the information technology (IT) related tasks, including scripts that perform file transfers and complex processes, as well as providing links to their commonly used sites and applications. CASE CU noted that IT often spends time improving processes for others and this provided them the opportunity to greatly improve their own processes. By centralizing these many processes and services, CASE CU experienced improved efficiency and reduced errors.
- Ent Federal Credit Union in Colorado Springs, Colorado won for their custom solution within their core called “Account Management.” Ent FCU created a central portal to conduct many common account maintenance items that were previously accomplished by multiple tools. In addition to common maintenance items such as account creation and maintenance, they also incorporated items such as profitable pre-qualification lending features, red flag warnings, to do lists, and access to needed forms or disclosures. Ent FCU has received a lot of positive feedback from staff and members that identified the ease and speed that was gained from making this change.
- Michael Mahiya, VP/CIO of XCEL Federal Credit Union in Bloomfield, New Jersey is being celebrated as an Innovative Leader. Having learned many lessons from previous impactful experiences such as 9/11 (XCEL FCU was headquartered in the World Trade Center), Mahiya looks to the future with preparedness and e-Services in mind. Mahiya is interested in not just helping his credit union be ready to assist other credit unions that may not have the same resources, offering them access to their redundant resources in situations like Hurricane Sandy. Knowing that e-Service access and functionality is key when facing these types of scenarios, Mahiya and his credit union have been working on developing their own solutions such as a mobile wallet that can be readily used by other credit unions.
A panel comprised of CUNA Technology Council members selected the winners based on strategy, process, application and results without regard to credit union asset size.
Additional information about the awards and winning entries are available online at www.cunacouncils.org. Select the “Council Awards Programs” link contained in the “Events & Recognition” pull down menu.
About CUNA Councils
Councils is a member-led, collaborative community of credit union leaders providing vibrant peer interaction, new ideas and innovation to foster professional development for executives while advocating for the overall success of the credit union movement. There are eight Councils with a network of more than 8,500 credit union professionals. For more information, visit cunacouncils.org.
CUNA Technology Council
The CUNA Technology Council is a member-led organization of credit union technology professionals dedicated to sharing information with its members and promoting the advancement of credit union technology. The CUNA Technology Council is one of six CUNA Councils, a network of more than 6,200 credit union professionals. For more information, visit www.cunacouncils.org.
