RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif.–CO-OP Financial Services is reporting what it described as “substantial achievements” against goals in the areas of product and technology delivery, expanded digital capabilities and greater credit union member experience and satisfaction.
The company said its momentum has been driven by substantial investment in client and member services – “even in difficult market conditions brought on by the pandemic" – yet noted it will finish the year with sound, debt-free financial performance.
CO-OP said it has broken sales records in new client contracts and the growth of its card processing clients, and that it continues to add new talent ranging from data scientists and technologists to contact center agents.
“Evolving from being a reseller to an ecosystem provider of payments technology and solutions has been our mission since 2016,” said Todd Clark, president/CEO of CO-OP. “Our commitment did not slow down because of COVID-19, but rather took on greater urgency to provide maximum value to the industry. We have turned a year of pandemic into a year of record momentum that will lead to more great work with and on behalf of our clients in 2021.”
The Roadmap
According to CO-OP, its ecosystem is guided by its annual Product Roadmap. CO-OP said solutions and insights it made available this year include services “designed to deepen member engagement and help credit unions build an interoperable payments platform.”
Those services include, CO-OP said:
- Zelle implementation. “Clients are positioned for fast, successful Zelle implementation enabling easy money movement because CO-OP’s account-based technology is already supported in the credit union marketplace by thousands of institutions and all major core processors.”
- EMV Contactless Cards, which “enables clients to give members a fast, secure, touch-free experience at the check-out line, which has never been more important than it is right now.”
- CO-OP Insights Center, which “gives credit unions the ability to quickly understand portfolio behavior and make decisions to grow their credit and debit programs.”
Coming Soon
Before year-end, CO-OP said it will release the following products to Technical Availability:
- Digital Card Issuance, which will “deliver digital card credentials to members within minutes, avoiding interruption from new card re-issues and lost/stolen/damaged events.”
- CO-OP Lifestyle Loyalty, a new rewards offering.
- Springboard: “Simply designed to unite credit and debit cardholder account information, CO-OP’s Springboard platform has been expanded to integrate real-time access across all CO-OP card processing to improve credit union operational efficiency,” CO-OP said.
- COOPER Fraud Score, which “uses machine learning to create risk-scoring models that determine the level of suspicion on card-based transactions to expand digital and human fraud team capabilities.”
“Combined, these upcoming solutions give credit unions a holistic digital engagement suite spanning usage, rewards and security, bringing them into a tighter primary financial relationship with their members,” said Clark.
Investments & Achievements
According to CO-OP, it hasplaced “intensive focus” on the interplay of service, technology and solutions to help clients meet the accelerating competitive market and member needs to improve the overall credit union experience delivery.
The company said additional 2020 achievements include:
Experience Centricity and Technology Delivery
- CO-OP Contact Centers “played a key role in credit union member services, particularly at the on-set of the pandemic. Technology enhancements enabled CO-OP to maintain high service levels while reassigning large numbers of staff to remote working and handling increased call volumes.”
- The enhancements to CO-OP Contact Centers, “in addition to client-centric design, contributed to a large client reporting a record high Net Promoter Score in member satisfaction and CO-OP’s largest increase in client loyalty to date.”
- CO-OP reported its Enterprise Technology and Services “increased its output of technology upgrades and releases by 44% in 2020, greatly advancing the digitization of company processes.”
- COOPER Fraud Analyzer, CO-OP’s machine-learning fraud prevention and detection tool, “completed its second year of service on behalf of clients. The high-quality data at the use of CO-OP’s team of fraud analysts adds security while reducing false positives,” the company stated.
- CO-OP THINK “delivered record credit union engagement, including the “The Payments Playbook” and nine virtual events to bring new strategies to clients at an unprecedented pace and numbers.”
Transaction Rebound Improving Member Engagement
- CO-OP said transaction processing totals rebounded sharply from the initial lag at the on-set of the pandemic.
Financial Wellness and Support
- CO-OP reported it continued to give back to the credit union community. In 2020, the company will have donated $1.7 million to the credit union system and charities, while credit unions participating in the CO-OP Miracle Match program raised around an additional $800,000.
‘Building Fast’
“Just recently we learned that for the second year in a row banks have bested credit unions in the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index survey,” said Clark. “With the full support of our board we are investing and building fast to give credit unions the solutions and technology development needed to meet the expectations of today’s members. This is our task as a credit union service organization. This effort has been thoroughly planned and budgeted for so that CO-OP can provide long-term value to all our clients and the credit union movement as a whole.”
For info: www.coop.org/Solutions.