ORLANDO, Fla.– Unitus Community CU, Educators CU, CASE CU, Ent FCU and XCEL FCU were honored as winners of the CUNA Technology Council 2015 “Excellence in Technology” awards at the Council’s 20th Annual Conference here.
According to the Technology Council the awards recognize outstanding approaches to technology challenges with potential for universal application across the credit union movement.
The winners for 2015 are:
- Unitus Community Credit Union in Portland, Ore., Won for its Sales and Service Referral solution. “Unitus Community CU identified an opportunity to improve their sales tracking process that had many manual components with dependencies on Excel spreadsheets. In order to streamline processes and improve the experience for members and staff, they implemented a custom integrated solution within their core called ‘The Hub,’ noting that the perceived and proven value was critical for user adoption. After this solution was implemented, Unitus Community CU was able to incorporate better marketing campaigns, improve sales reporting and experienced improvements in their sales and service performance.”
- Educators Credit Union in Mt. Pleasant, Wis., won for its submission titled “Tech IT Up a Notch,” a program it “implemented with the desire to inspire cultural change that encourages innovation, promotes collaboration, and generates ‘buzz’ for its new online channels. Educators CU arranged a two-day, high-energy event promoting creativity, encouraging collaboration, and rewarding innovative ideas. Chosen staff represented different departments or locations and promoted organizational diversity, and teams were formed to include a great mix of teambuilding and innovation-oriented tasks. Educators CU gained great ideas of which they believe they will be able to turn into realities.”
- CASE Credit Union in Lansing, Mich. was awarded for its custom Information Systems Dashboard solution. “This solution provides CASE CU a centralized location for many of the information technology (IT) related tasks, including scripts that perform file transfers and complex processes, as well as providing links to their commonly used sites and applications. CASE CU noted that IT often spends time improving processes for others and this provided them the opportunity to greatly improve their own processes. By centralizing these many processes and services, CASE CU experienced improved efficiency and reduced errors.”
- Ent Federal Credit Union in Colorado Springs, Colo., won for it custom solution within their core called “Account Management. Ent FCU created a central portal to conduct many common account maintenance items that were previously accomplished by multiple tools. In addition to common maintenance items such as account creation and maintenance, they also incorporated items such as profitable pre-qualification lending features, red flag warnings, to do lists, and access to needed forms or disclosures. Ent FCU has received a lot of positive feedback from staff and members that identified the ease and speed that was gained from making this change.”
- Michael Mahiya, VP/CIO of XCEL Federal Credit Union in Bloomfield, N.J., was recognized as an “Innovative Leader. Having learned many lessons from previous impactful experiences such as 9/11 (XCEL FCU was headquartered in the World Trade Center), Mahiya looks to the future with preparedness and e-Services in mind. Mahiya is interested in not just helping his credit union be ready to assist other credit unions that may not have the same resources, offering them access to their redundant resources in situations like Hurricane Sandy. Knowing that e-Service access and functionality is key when facing these types of scenarios, Mahiya and his credit union have been working on developing their own solutions such as a mobile wallet that can be readily used by other credit unions,” the Technology Council said in announcing the award.