Idaho Central Credit Union (ICCU) is the largest state chartered credit union in Idaho. In the last 5-7 years it has expanded its footprint beyond Idaho, to encompass people living and working in Washington state, and also parts of Oregon. It currently has $10bn in assets, making it in the top 20 credit unions in the country.

Launched in 1940, its mission has been to help members achieve financial success. Alongside traditional consumer services, such as deposits, savings and loans, it offers wealth management, financial planning and insurance products, and also has a business division.

An appetite for innovation

As a member-led organization, ICCU is continually having to adapt to changing consumer sentiment shaped by macro-economic trends. For example, in recent years, high interest-rates have encouraged savers, but put lenders at risk while also increasing living costs, which can negatively impact membership. Innovation has been key to this adaptability, explains Wade Saunders, ICCU’s SVP of Consumer Lending.

“The purpose of our innovation has a lot to do with how our members engage with us. Increasingly that is via digital channels, but we also want to enhance the branch experience, so that whatever channel our members prefer, we are their first choice.”

Futureproofing better lending

A recent focus for ICCU has been on improving the loan application experience for members. Its incumbent Loan Origination System (LOS) had been sunsetted by the vendor, which forced ICCU to look for alternatives. A key criteria was automation.

“We wanted to identify points of friction in our processes that can be eliminated with automation, and create the ability to process loan applications without employee-intervention.”

Wade explains that Temenos was one of the first options out of the gate, because of the ability to customize its solution. ICCU also had an eye on the future, and a partner that could support deposits and accounts as well as loans. More generally, this scalability was a key reason why ICCU selected Temenos. Having experienced growth of up to 20% in the last decade, and forecasting a similar trajectory, ICCU wanted a provider that could manage this expansion.

“We wanted a technology partner that is willing to grow with us, and invest in its entire suite of solutions as we continue to scale.”

Immediate impact

ICCU deployed three products from the Temenos digital platform: Account Origination (through Journey Manager) which went live in 2020; as well as Collections and Loan Origination (both live from 2021). The impact was immediate.

Wade puts this success down to the expertise that Temenos has in managing large deployment projects.

“We didn’t have any red flags with the launch, and that’s down to all the testing we did with Temenos, and the transparency of our conversations. Being able to be really honest with each other, and take points professionally not personally, has been a key feature of our partnership so far.”

One area where the new solutions have had a big impact is the ICCU’s credit card division.

ICCU has also applied the Temenos solution to its HELOC (home equity line of credit) product, with similar impact. HELOC applications had been taking up to a month to process; this has been reduced to around 18 days, 41% faster.

“We’re now able to order property title documents and integrate that within the system, so we avoid the delays from errors in manually inputting this information.”

Act like an underwriter

A major benefit of Temenos has been the ability to leverage historical underwriting data in the system, explains Wade.

“Because we have the data about how an underwriter is likely to score an application, we can go straight to approving or declining them, and so decrease the amount of ‘undecideds’ that need to be manually checked.”

Today, 70% of all ICCU’s loan and credit applications are processed completely automatically.

Today, a customer can complete a loan application and receive funding in as little as 12-18 minutes, around 50% faster than before. And by using the data to continually retrain the system, Wade and his team will see that percentage improve further.

Accuracy, first time

Temenos IMM (‘Image Management Module’), an integrated feature of Originations, has also had profound benefits.

“We’ve seen an increase in the accuracy of the loan documents, so we don’t have to chase up members for the correct information.”

This has not only made the process more efficient. “These are key compliance documents. So the fact we can trust Temenos’ IMM more than our previous solution means we can go faster with the confidence that we are maintaining regulatory standards.”

The new system also makes it easier for members to submit the documents needed to support their application, by allowing them to upload them to a central portal instead of emailing, faxing or sending by post.

Happier customers = more customers

The result of all this has been to increase digital engagement and satisfaction; on the latter, the company has seen an increase of 5-10% in recent years. This growing reputation has attracted new customers. In the last few years, ICCU has grown its membership by 10-15%.

Just the start…

ICCU is making good on its strategy to achieve growth through a deepening partnership with Temenos. Wade is looking to apply auto-decision making to its HELOCs business.

Looking to the future, Temenos’ API architecture offers huge potential, says Wade. “It gives us access to Temenos’ partner ecosystem, plus other vendors with solutions we may want to integrate. That’s almost limitless capabilities to allow us to move in any direction we want to.”

One example that Wade and his team are now exploring is the connector with ‘Dealertrack’. That integration will allow ICCU to automatically populate information from car dealers into Temenos, and so significantly reduce manual processes and paperwork when making car loans.

He is also keen to expand Temenos to reshape the company’s network loan business. “Our contractors use one of eight different loan systems and processes. So there’s a huge scope to bring efficiencies here too.”

Whichever direction ICCU will choose, Wade is confident that the relatively new partnership with Temenos has durability. That was recently evidenced when Wade was invited to share his story at the Temenos Credit Union Fall Forum. “We have hundreds of vendors, but our relationship with Temenos means a lot.”

Texans Credit Union provides a full suite of financial products and services, including across digital and mobile channels. Launched in 1953, today it has more than 120,000 members across Texas, including the employees of the state’s 100 largest businesses. It operates 11 branches, and manages over $2.1 billion in assets.

For JJ Bai, Vice President of Programming at Texans Credit Union, growth has been achieved with the ability to stay in step with what their customers need. “There are always uncertainties in financial markets. Our job is to forecast the weather and prepare for the financial storms, when they come. It’s about creating opportunities while others are managing the chaos.”

Opening ecosystems

Technology has been key to this strategy, says JJ, and in recent years has taken the form of APIs and SDKs that allow Texans to develop and customize solutions. “APIs and SDKs…these are the fundamentals of open banking, which has become critical to competitiveness. Temenos has very comprehensive Rest APIs, which has really opened the door to custom development. That’s why the partnership has become so important.”

Texans started working with Temenos in 2011, deploying Loan Origination and Collections. One impact of the API architecture has been in connecting with third-party loan providers that may offer more suitable products to their members, . “Before, we would not have been able to accommodate these applicants. Now, we have a lending ecosystem that can serve them.”

Faster lending

The improvements continue to come. “Recently, we used the Temenos SDK to revamp the virtual capture aspect of our loan applications” says JJ. “It cut loan application times to just 2.5 minutes from 7 minutes, which led to an increase in loan volumes by 35% in the first three months, which is phenomenal.” A high NPS score of 82 is further evidence that the improved customer experience is working.

JJ explains that this has repercussions beyond the loans business.

Cross-selling and digitizing

He also points to the development of a new loans ancillary product that enables advisors to cross-sell debt protection add-ons, such as gap, warranty insurance, and multishield. It alone has API integrations with five different vendors.

The new loans ancillary product also brings improvements to the back-office by automating process flows. “It has been overwhelmingly positive with our test group, so we are now rolling it out to all our advisors.”

Green and flexible

Innovation at Texans is increasingly approached through the lens of environmental sustainability – and to that end, JJ is looking at migrating Loan Origination and Collections from on-premises to cloud, either privately-hosted or in SaaS mode. Alongside the green benefits of moving to cloud, there are also operational gains.

JJ has the ‘dev and test’ flexibility of cloud in mind with plans to expand Texans’ lending portfolio. One is a lease-like vehicle loan product with a balloon payment feature; and also new credit card options. He expects this can be replicated to other areas of the credit union.

Indispensable

This future planning speaks to the confidence that Texans has in Temenos. “Flexible, expandable, scalable, reliable – this is how we think about Temenos,” says JJ.

All In Credit Union started as the Army Aviation Center Federal Credit Union in 1966. Today it is a full-service financial institution, serving both retail and business sectors. It offers a wide range of banking, credit, savings and insurance services. It operates 35 branches located across Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and Mississippi. It has 190,000 members and more than $3.3 billion in assets and is ranked among the best credit unions in the US, with a 5-star rating from BauerFinancial.

Growth by Passion

Melanie Robinson, Recovery Solutions Manager at All In CU, says growth over the last 58 years comes down to one thing. “We are passionate about our members and give them everything they need – products, experiences and help – to make their lives better.”

While this passion has been the goal of All In CU since its inception, it has proved more challenging in recent years, explains Melanie. “With the economy here underperforming, many families and communities are increasingly struggling to achieve financial security. Education has become more important to what we do.”

Connected

That ability – to constantly stay ahead of the curve – is really how the credit union defines innovation, she says. APIs have become core to that, using them to connect with other internal systems and third-party solutions: SWBC, FICO (data analytics), and PSCU (MasterCard program administrator), for example.

Consolidated

All In CU has been working with Temenos since 2017 to deliver on its innovation strategy. “Our previous collection software did not have everything we needed, including connectivity to our core platform, so it was limited in scope to just the delinquent loan part of the business. We wanted a solution that could also work across all the other areas of our collections operation, such as negative checking accounts, auto loans and credit card late payments. We chose Temenos because it offered that consolidation.”

One benefit has been in the customer experience.

Experts Not Required

That switch has been enabled by the usability of the software, says Melanie “Configuration doesn’t require any technical experience, and the interface is very intuitive. I remember when we first deployed Temenos, I was there doing the configuration for our go-live, and I was amazed how easy it was to just tailor everything to our needs. We could set up a workflow for this function or set up cases for this function. It just turned our world around.”

This is replicated whenever a new starter joins the team. “They can get up to speed really quickly. They learn how to use Temenos faster than any other solution we have.”

Ease of use, together with the decision to deploy Temenos in the cloud, has had a knock-on benefit to the rest of the business, explains Melanie.

This echoes her experience during the go-live phase. “Our Temenos consultant gave us great advice about who and how to train on the new system and explained all the functionalities. And he encouraged us to be proactive with questions and ideas. I’d share that advice. It’s no good having some of your people using the system effectively and others not.”

Time is Money

The impact of Temenos on the credit union can be measured in time, says Melanie. “Time is money. So, when you’re able to do something faster, it has a financial implication. And that’s precisely what we’ve achieved. Before Temenos, we worked late into the night – up to 9:00 p.m. – with paper files. Now, our day ends like a regular day should at 5:00 p.m.”

It has also had a positive impact on performance management. “From the platform, I can see which members of my team are performing at their best or who needs a little help.”

One Step Ahead

Always with one eye on the future of All In CU, Melanie explains that Temenos’ API architecture and established relationships with other financial software vendors, instills confidence that the platform can keep delivering.