GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—CU*Answers has hosted its first-ever Data Investment Symposium, a unique, focus group event held to brainstorm new investments the CUSO should be making in data.
Present were credit union leaders and data analysts from across the country who joined in a conversation with key CU*Answers leaders to contribute their ideas on developing new strategies, the CUSO reported.
The morning session, “Understanding CU*BASE Data Structures & Tools,” focused on the CU*BASE core platform database and included sneak peeks at new features in development that will give credit unions even more flexibility in how their data can be used.
Several highlights included:
- CU*Answers has added a database engineer to its development team.
- CU*Answers is moving from DDS (data description specifics) to DDL (data definition language) as a standard.
- Projects for 2015 to help users better understand database development and other user analytics.
During the afternoon session, the group heard from guest speaker Paul Ablack, CEO of OnApproach, who discussed his organization’s take on enterprise data warehouses and how credit unions can leverage data to better serve their members. OnApproach is a CUSO that focuses on providing data integration, Big Data, reporting, and analytics to credit unions.
“Credit unions are still honing their operations to get the most out of their investment in data,” said CU*Answers CEO Randy Karnes. “For this session we invited future thinkers and leaders who are focused on developing analytical approaches for credit union data, and want to campaign for new investments to help the CUSO develop models that we can all learn from. I believe we are approaching an important tipping point in credit union strategies when it comes to harvesting opportunities from data.”