NAPERVILLE, Ill.–Alloya Corporate FCU has announced the introduction of a new educational community for faster and real-time payments.
The community, titled Alloya Insights: Faster Payments, is “designed to help credit unions better understand the rapidly evolving landscape of faster and real-time payments, establish a community where credit unions can learn from and help one another, and develop and implement a faster payments member experience strategy,” Alloya stated.
“The Clearing House’s RTP Network will celebrate its fifth anniversary this year, and this time next year we’ll be looking forward to the launch of the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service,” remarked Kurt Stevenson, SVP-payments at Alloya. “So, it’s safe to say that credit unions are facing pressure to join the movement toward faster and real-time payments, particularly as we saw credit unions’ customer satisfaction rating fall behind banks for a second consecutive year.”
Response to Drop in Member Satisfaction
As CUToday.info has extensively reported and as Alloya also noted, per the 2020 annual report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI), satisfaction rates saw a notable dip for credit unions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as tech-forward digital services gained greater importance, and in-person services waned in relevance.
“At this critical juncture, joining the faster payments movement could be make or break for some credit unions,” Stevenson continued. “As we’ve been having these discussions with some of Alloya’s members, many have expressed uneasiness and uncertainty about getting in the proverbial game. This prompted Alloya to identify an opportunity to further our mission of supporting credit union success by launching the Alloya Insights: Faster Payments educational community. That’s why we have dedicated significant senior management resources to research and develop this initiative.”
Numerous Resources Offered
According to Alloya, by joining the community, credit unions will gain access to a series of live educational webinars, virtual interactive roundtable events, an online portal that includes a Q&A forum, answers to FAQs, topic briefings and blog posts, and much more.
“In essence, Alloya’s team of experts will dedicate the requisite time and effort to stay involved with the latest research, developments and industry groups, then synthesize the information and provide it to the community participants in a way that’s easy to understand,” Alloya explained.
To join, credit unions will pay a one-time fee of $2,500 for 12 months of program access.
The ‘Best Mechanism’
“We believe this is the best mechanism for a service like this,” said Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Jim Schneck. “The faster payments ecosystem is ever-changing and evolving, and credit unions need a way to reconcile and make sense of the mass quantities of information that are published by a multitude of outlets seemingly round-the-clock. By joining the Alloya Insights: Faster Payments community, credit unions will effectively be able to outsource the research and analysis processes to our team.”
Alloya Insights: Faster Payments will launch on Feb. 15 with a webinar that is open to all credit unions, free of charge. For info, visit www.alloyacorp.org/alloya-insights-faster-payments.