Your Privacy

This site uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience and deliver personalized content. By continuing to use this site, you consent to our use of cookies.
COOKIE POLICY

Financial Services

Modernizing a Credit Union for a Global Merger Event

Modernizing a Credit Union for a Global Merger Event

Efficiently serving credit union members in today’s online environment requires a tech-focused platform and access to a robust technology team. Credit unions must ensure their technology infrastructure meets essential user needs while supporting a modern experience. So when a large federal credit union was preparing for a global credit union merger event, they faced challenges adapting to the rapidly evolving digital landscape. With a limited internal team, necessary code upgrades, tech enhancements and integrations with CORE banking platforms were backlogged, affecting members’ user experiences. With the merger event’s deadline approaching, they reached out to UDig to have the support they needed to move quickly and modernize. 

How We Went from Ideas to Impact

  • The Idea

    Infrastructure wasn’t adapted to modern-day requirements, leading to data risks, while capacity issues bottlenecked additional enhancements.

  • The Process

    Complete a deep dive into their backlog of work to address capacity challenges to set the client up for improving processes and enabling upgrades to support their CORE banking platform.

  • The Impact

    The credit union overcame backlogged challenges and modernized their systems and processes in time for the merger event while improving overall member satisfaction and engagement.

The Idea

Overcoming Legacy Tech Infrastructure and Capacity Needs

The federal credit union has had many modernization tasks to complete to improve their tech platforms and member experiences over the last few years. However, they were also experiencing a staffing shortage with their Software Engineering Project Team, which bottlenecked projects. They were stuck playing catch up rather than making necessary business enhancements like offloading older processes and systems to their modern EIP platform. Further, their credit union merger event placed increased pressure on their development timelines against an already pressing backlog of work.  

The credit union was met with additional challenges: 

  • Differences in work methods: The teams had functionality differences in their process, methods of working, and communication styles between team members, product owners, and the business. This environment meant they needed to improve workflows to foster seamless coordination and collaboration while meeting shared deadlines and managing solutions. 
  • Outdated code: As a result of old code, our client had a patchwork of solutions as workarounds to help meet the increasing digital user demands from their members. This left their systems vulnerable to risks. 
  • Unassigned tasks: Tasks and projects sometimes didn’t have a clear direction on decision-making, causing confusion between teams and delays in deadlines.

These factors challenged the credit union’s ability to efficiently upgrade their technology while meeting the credit union merger event’s demands within schedule and on budget.

The Process

Support Backlogged Projects While Deploying Tech Upgrades

Once we began working with our client, we knew we had to ramp up quickly to help them meet their varied priorities. Our first goal was to ease the pressure of completing the number of incomplete coding projects holding them back from meeting other essential business upgrades. 

Step 1 – Conduct discovery phase: To start, we needed to know the ins and outs of how they work and the technology challenges holding them back. We also identified the tasks their teams needed to complete and how we could integrate ourselves into their processes and workflows. 

Step 2 – Boost capacity to complete backlogged projects: We quickly got to work on their backed-up projects and often were able to complete tasks within two days (instead of the expected 2-week timeline). During this step, we integrated seamlessly with their teams, communicated openly, and managed daily meetings. This efficient work environment resulted in our team completing 37 backlogged coding projects in a much quicker timeline than our client anticipated. 

Step 3 – Make business upgrades: Once we helped our client catch up with their backlogged projects, we were ready to support their technology upgrades. We focused on the following: 

  • UltraBranch: Needing to improve the user and mobile experiences for their members, UltraBranch was our first priority. The initial machine used an older version of Java, so we had to help them modernize this function. We worked to improve the structure and decrease risks on the platform. 
  • Symitar: Next, we helped them create the ability to authenticate joint signers on an account via separate methods, which was a feature that didn’t exist for member accounts. 
  • Okta: We then helped our client build multifactor authentication into the account-login process for joint signers. This feature enabled secondary account holders to log in and access joint accounts.  

Through this process, we helped coordinate and facilitate teams across multiple lines of business. We also completed the projects ahead of deadline, despite business pushing their deadline up by a month during the process.  

Further, our support helped them: 

  • Identify and fix bugs in the systems 
  • Strengthen internal processes for teams working together and sharing information 
  • Keep executive stakeholders informed and engaged during workflows with weekly and biweekly meetings 
  • Vet the mobile experience prior to the launch 
  • Complete all tasks ahead of the credit union merger event

The Impact

Improved Capacity and Increased Member Satisfaction Ahead of Global Merger

Today, the now global credit union, has successfully modernized their systems and improved capacity across their business platforms — and met their merger deadline. Members now have access to joint-account sign-on matched with a modern mobile experience integrated back to the CORE banking platform. Their teams have improved processes for how they work and communicate through an agile method. With these modernizations in place, our client has paved the way for continuing to modernize as they work and fostering ongoing member satisfaction and engagement.

  • How We Did It
    Application DevelopmentApplication IntegrationDevOpsUser Experience
  • Tech Stack
    HTML / CSSJavaMSSQL.Net Core

Digging In

  • Financial Services

    Laying the Foundation: Data Governance in AI for Core Banking

    Before embarking on the transformative path of integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into core banking systems, the critical foundation of data governance must be addressed. As banks prepare for significant AI investments, the importance of establishing robust data governance frameworks cannot be overstated. Proper data governance is crucial for ensuring that the data fueling AI systems […]

  • Financial Services

    GDPR & CCPA Implications for Banks Using AI

    A Primer on Navigating in the New Privacy Landscape In an era where data is the new gold, the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States has fundamentally altered the landscape for financial institutions leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI). These […]

  • Financial Services

    A Primer on Integrating AI in Banking

    As we delve deeper into the digital age, the banking sector is witnessing a transformative shift, led by the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Core banking systems, traditionally characterized by their robustness and reliability, are now on the front lines of this revolution. In 2024, core banking systems need to be ready to leverage AI, […]

  • Financial Services

    Data Strategy for Credit Unions

    Build A Robust Data Strategy Getting your credit union to leverage data effectively in the decision-making process requires a sound data strategy. However, having a data strategy by itself is not sufficient. Successful organizations develop a data strategy that is actively supported throughout the organization. Data is one of the most robust assets a credit […]

  • Financial Services

    Credit Union Data Insights | CULytics Takeaways

    Recently I attended the CULytics 2023 Summit in Seattle, and as someone with two decades of experience in financial services data and analytics, I found it to be a valuable experience. The CULytics Summit brings credit union leaders together to discuss real-life motivations and challenges around data and digital. This was my first time attending […]

  • Financial Services

    CU|Lytics Summit Sponsor

    We're thrilled to sponsor the 2023 CU|Lytics Summit and connect with Credit Union leaders from across the country.

  • Financial Services

    Leveraging the Power of Automation for CPA Firms

    Are you wrestling with daily repetitive, mundane, and manual tasks or looking for ways to create capacity? Gary Thomson, CPA Practice Management Consultant, and Jessa Barnes, Principal Consultant – Intelligent Automation, sit down and discuss exactly what a “bot” or “automation” is and how it can be applied in the accounting and finance world.

  • Financial Services

    Increase Quality and Speed to Market of Core Products for Point-of-Sale Financing Provider

    A large, point-of-sale finance organization engaged UDig to help lead and manage a significant application modernization effort for their core products. The two products represented both sides of the retail financing transaction - retailers and customers.  While the organization applied cutting-edge technologies in its decisioning system as a competitive advantage, its two customer-facing products were antiquated and needed to be modernized.