The credit union core systems marketplace has always been an ever-changing landscape, with both rookie and veteran providers competing to stand out.
In fact, Callahan & Associates designed the Supplier Market Share Guide: Credit Union Core Processors partly to help financial cooperatives survey their options and find new systems that better meet their evolving needs.
Credit unions let their wallets do the talking in 2015. To see how their core preferences played out, read Increased Competition Core Market Share Gains And Losses by analyst Sam Taft, Callahan’s director of industry analysis.
Now granted, Bill Kennedy is a bean counter, not a technologist, but the chief financial officer at Interior Federal Credit Union has been around the block a time or two when it comes to extracting maximum value out of core processing systems.
Or trying to anyway. In a career that has included involvement in three system selections and two conversions, Kennedy says he’s seen plenty of times that credit union staff think their system can’t do something when, in fact, it can, or at least it can enough to suffice.
To see how outside consultants and internal cooperation can help review and recommend ways to get the most from the heart of the technology infrastructure, read How To Extract Maximum Value From Core Processing by Callahan senior writer Marc Rapport.
Late-night phone calls are rarely good news, but Steve Branstetter no longer worries about getting them from work. That’s just one of the benefits of outsourcing core processing operations, says the executive vice president and chief financial officer at People’s Trust Federal Credit Union.
Nights, weekends, if the phone started ringing, my heart started racing, Branstetter says. But not now. That’s one less thing we have to worry about.
In Outsourcing Offers Silent Nights For A Texas Credit Union, Branstetter reflects on how People’s Trust FCU recaptured staff time and added operational reliability with its move from an in-house core to an external data center.
On the other side of the coin is Mutual Savings Credit Union, which dropped its service bureau relationship with its core processor in favor of adopting an in-house platform. Read Why Did This Alabama Credit Union Take Back Its Core? to learn how the move provided i ncreased flexibility and leaner operations yet is not for everyone.
Rudy Pereira has long known a credit union’s processes and people are at the core of a credit union’s success. The president and CEO of Royal Credit Union joined the credit union industry in 1990 after six years as a systems engineer and software programmer with Hewlett-Packard and Hughes Aircraft, respectively, in California.
In Core Advice From A CEO Technologist, Pereira shares his views on merging people and processes to elicit the maximum benefit from a credit unon’s core processing system.
And finally, check out the CreditUnions.com Graphic Of The Week, Everything You Wanted To Know About Core Processors, for the high points of Callahan’s 2016 Supplier Market Share Guide: Credit Union Core Processors. How is the landscape changing; how is it staying the same?
Happy Reading!
