SAN DIEGO–During its THINK 16 Conference here, CO-OP Financial Services announced new or updated initiatives around sponsoring a Filene Chair of Excellence, introducing a “Credit Union Pay” mobile solution, as well as The Credit Union Innovation Project.
Here’s a look at each:
- CO-OP said it has become the second organization, after CUNA Mutual, to become a Filene Research Institute Centers of Excellence sponsor, in this case fun
- ding the Center of Excellence for Technology. CO-OP did not disclose the cost of the sponsorship, but when CUNA Mutual announced it would be the first to sign on with with Filene earlier this year for a Center of Excellence, it said it was contributing $1 million.
Filene’s plans are to have five centers to be in place by 2017. Each is designed to generate deeper, more focused and practical research and direction.
- CO-OP’s Caroline Willard announced that with “digital payment technologies the engine of future credit union growth,” CO-OP is working to have credit unions join the world of digital payments platforms such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay with a white-label payments app, a “Credit Union Pay,” so to speak. Willard said CO-OP is now working to create a proof of concept for the payments app.
- During THINK, CO-OP offered an update on The Credit Union Innovation Project, which it first announced in February at CUNA’s GAC. The Project is a partnership with OpenIDEO and MasterCard and is aimed at giving credit unions and OpenIDEO’s global community the means to collaborate and execute ideas, generating unique connections between consumers and their financial services provider. The program builds on the success of the CO-OP THINK Prize 15, in which collaboration between credit unions and OpenIDEO innovators generated several new financial inclusion projects. Core to the project are a Fellowship program and specialized tools for credit union employees to co-create the future of human-centered financial services, CO-OP said.
Six people have been working as part of a beta of the Innovation Project to date, including two from CO-OP.