GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.–CU*Answers announced that its new Developer’s Help Desk (DHD) business initiative is moving quickly ahead, with its new online retail presence in full development and the CUSO’s first API catalog ready to be distributed at the company’s June Leadership Conference.
For nearly 50 years, CU*Answers said it has provided a “collaborative, do-it-together model” for credit unions to collectively partner to design and build new software solutions. CU*Answers said its DHD approach is very different. It becomes the center of client project management, and is uniquely targeted to clients with a builder’s soul (or DIY approach) that want to design and build something for themselves.
“Under DHD, the client is the boss, totally empowered to tell us what they envision and want,” said Scott Page, business development manager. “The benefit is this provides clients a new way to develop custom software, in which they tell us what they need and we act as a general contractor for their project, helping determine the amount of resources they’ll need from CU*Answers to complete it. The cooperative development model is still the lifeblood of our organization, where software development takes the entire cooperative’s needs into consideration, but through DHD, we can also be here to help a credit union create their individual vision. For many clients, this will offer a refreshing new way for partnering with CU*Answers.”
CU*Answers said its DHD team has laid out several aggressive goals to accomplish in 2017, including adding consulting and development staff, and officially launching the DHD Virtual Online Store, where clients will find a convenient location to begin designing their custom solutions.
Separately, AuditLink, the auditing and compliance division of CU*Answers, reported it facilitated its third annual compliance symposium sponsored by Michigan Legacy Credit Union in Pontiac, Mich.
“This is the largest event AuditLink facilitates during the year, which has grown in popularity and this year included over thirty compliance professionals,” said Jim Vilker VP of Professional Services.
To start the day a presentation on the upcoming changes relative to the Bank Secrecy Act and new requirements for beneficial owners of accounts was presented by Veronica Madsen of Howard & Howard Attorneys. “This is on every BSA officer’s mind and the nuances and requirements of the regulation were explained extremely well,” added Vilker. Following Madsen, Vilker presented a regulatory update and status of the new service AuditLink and thirteen other credit unions built cooperatively for automating the vendor management process and requirements.
Jessica Hillborg of Frankenmuth Credit Union and Angie Szatkowski of Alpena Alcona Area Credit Union joined Vilker in an afternoon panel discussion that included the presentation of an audit plan that any credit union in the network can use as a template for managing their audit and compliance internal program. It was the result of over two months of work where the two credit unions and Amanda Craig from Honor Credit Union joined together and created a working template for all of the credit unions.
“Credit unions are now expected to create an annual plan, but struggle with what exactly that plan should include,” said Szatkowski. “In true cooperative spirit, we collectively created a template that calendarizes all events, including the role of an internal auditor, required risk assessments, the management of exams and third party audits, all the way through to the implementation of a solid set of internal controls.”