Modernizing a Credit Union for a Global Merger Event

Challenge: 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• Outdated code: As a result of old code, our client had a patchwork of solutions as workarounds to help meet the increasing digital user demands from their members.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.

Strategy: 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

Outcome: 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.