New Year, New Core

With the New Year comes new resolutions, intended to improve a variety of aspects of life in one way or another. While many associate New Year’s resolutions with the promise to live a healthier lifestyle or drop a bad habit, business owners tend to strive for less cliché goals intended to create long-lasting, positive effects for their company. These may include streamlining operations or achieving strategic growth goals. For credit unions, one such resolution should be to determine if it is the right time to integrate a new core solution and then to take action. 

A reoccurring phenomenon among credit unions is many never think the time is right to begin the process of conversion—so, what better time to make a move than with the start of a new year? Optimizing core functionality can be a key differentiator as you work to hit 2016 growth goals and reach benchmarks in your long-term strategic business plan. This process should be looked at as a solution—an opportunity to improve technology and service offerings, thereby improving the overall member experience for your credit union. To guarantee this process is seamless, you need to ensure both the core and the core provider are the right fit for your credit union, as a one-size-fits-all approach tends to generate inferior results and dissatisfaction.

To effectively begin the process, one of your credit union’s Q1 2016 goals must be to identify your specific needs. Whether your credit union is outpacing its current technology platform or your core provider’s service is lackluster, the motivators that are driving you to make a switch need to be noted and highlighted in your selection process for a new solution. For providers to work collaboratively with credit unions to generate an ideal solution, they must be able to identify how their core can meet the criteria you’ve outlined in your internal technology assessment. A tailored approach by a company that understands your credit union’s needs is a vital component to a successful conversion and leads to achieving your long-term objectives.

As our CEO, Wayne Benson, noted in a recent article in CUToday, “One of the most important questions your credit union must ask, and in turn core providers must answer, is what can we do to streamline the process? There are numerous considerations at play: data protection, compliance and regulatory issues, third party integrations, staff and member experience, customer service, and of course—architectural changes. A provider must factor in these and other variables to ensure inoperability issues are addressed, not created—an unfortunate byproduct of poor customer-vendor communication.”

The key in this process, and in your decision to convert in 2016, is to preserve the mindset of acting proactively rather than reactively. Changing in preparation for shifting member demand and technological evolution is a much more comfortable proposition than changing because one no longer has a choice. Innovation within the financial industry is already happening and will continue to improve, so don’t let the fear of change put you at the back of the pack.  

Cheers to a Happy New Year full of success and growth!


Robin Kolvek

Senior VP of Business Development

EPL, Inc.