In the distant past, most credit unions were relatively small financial institutions, serving the needs of members that were either all employed by the same entity or geographically co-located.

Today, credit unions play a critical role by offering financial services to nearly one-third of all Americans, with over 86 million memberships. It’s natural that a sector of this importance would attract more government oversight.

To its credit, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) has done a fine job of spearheading the work of maintaining good governmental affairs with legislators and the various regulatory agencies. A glance at its current advocacy priorities provides an overview of the regulatory challenges that now face this growing sector of the business.

What matters to regulators now

The priorities of government regulators line up well with the priorities of successful credit unions. Both care about serving credit union members. Modern credit unions are reaching this goal by going through an unprecedented transformation enabled by digital interventions.

By completing their digital journeys, credit unions are providing higher levels of satisfaction to their members, which looks good to regulators and helps CUNA with its governmental affairs work.

One way leading credit unions are accomplishing this is by employing a method called “Digital Adoption in a Box.” This method, agnostic to existing technology products and platforms, takes a platform-based approach to attracting partnerships across industries. It brings in new revenue streams, allows banking services to be embedded into member journeys, and enhances both the member and employee experience.

One of the largest credit unions in the U.S. recently used this method as part of its digital transformation to re-imagine member journeys. It started by redesigning its core processes, enabled by effective technology solutions from partners like 3i Infotech, to create “delightful” experiences for members, employees, and partners.

This credit union’s success with “Digital Adoption in a Box” shows how the creation of an ecosystem of business and technology partners helps the credit union collaborate, leveraging each other’s strengths to deliver financial products and services to members across the U.S. and beyond. 

The Autonomous Data Warehouse (ADW) forms the foundation for offering a seamless member experience. The Member360 engine from 3i Infotech provides 360-degree profiling of member’s static and dynamic transactional behavior for real-time insights to enhance cross-sell, increase share of wallet, and significantly enhance member satisfaction.

The Member360 engine is well–oiled by the ADW, added with turbo-power multi-cylinders like Insights Command Centre for scientific management decisions and Fraud Prevention, governed by a robust Information Lifecycle Management.

Efforts like this allow credit unions to be even stronger competitors while demonstrating their core commitment to better serving the members that federal regulators are sworn to protect.

DR. KAYLAN KRISHAMOORTHY is an enterprise value solution orchestrator and chief business excellence officer at 3i Infotech. Krishnamoorthy has more than 25 years of experience and is an expert in people, process, and technology transformation. Send comments to Dr. Krishnamoorthy at kalyan.krishnamoorthy@3i-infotech.com.