For CalPoly Federal Credit Union — located on a California university campus that was re-wiring and shutting off electricity while students were home on break — it meant getting creative and finding a “relocation on a dime” solution.

From Dec. 27 to Dec. 30, the credit union would be without power and with members in need of access.  Faculty, staff, students and former students all were expecting their credit union to be open for business even if the University wasn’t.

“It was an interesting problem,” said CEO Barbara Bean.  “Not everyone is eager to go the distance for you during Christmas week when there are so many other things going on.”

But CalPoly has some unique relationships forged through the philosophy of credit unions helping credit unions helping members.  Even their data processor, a Credit Union Owned Service Organization, was there to offer a seamless transition of technology.

The campus police – most of whom are members of the almost 3000-member credit union — have an emergency generator and offered the five-person credit union a home for the holidays.  Nearby Inland Valley Credit Union also offered a workstation at their facility and since both credit unions use the same core processor, it was simple.

“We both use CU*NorthWest for data processing and the software lends itself to these kinds of collaborative efforts,” said Chuck Papenfus, CEO at Inland Valley.  “There was no moving of computers or re-loading software or anything like that.  They just came and logged in through the Network Community.”

The technology piece of this puzzle was the easy piece, Bean agreed.  “CU*NorthWest made it look easy.  We could access our member’s data, print out receipts, create and fund loans, run reports and cut checks – virtually anything the member needed.  The bottom line is our members were served.”

Uniquely served, that is.  The police station has a certain atmosphere, Bean explained.  “We spoke to members through a buzzer at the dispatcher window.  We had donuts every day and the police escorted our members in.  It was really quite fun.”

Because they had effectively gotten the word out about the temporary relocation, members made an extra effort to check it out, Bean said.  “That Friday was payday and we had lines,” she said.  “Even people who normally use our online banking features from their computer or smart phone, stopped in to see us.  I think everyone enjoyed the novelty of visiting their money at the cop shop,” she said.

“The Christmas spirit brought out some really good collaboration,” she added with a smile.

Renee Petersen, VP of Internal Operations at Unison CU in Kaukauna, WI said, “This conference reinforced my confidence in the legality of electronic documents and electronic signatures as we move forward to meet our members’ needs for convenience.  Also, the new ProDOC Packages™ solution will be a valuable tool for our staff and will save them time by organizing their documents in an electronic workflow for account openings and loan closings. ProDOC Packages™ “virtual manila folder” provides an easy to view dashboard and checklist to ensure that we have all the necessary documents and that all documents have been completed prior to finalizing the transaction and storing the documents.  No more missing files, documents or signatures.”

Matthew Young, credit union attorney from the law firm, Weltman, Weinberg and Reis reviewed requirements under the eSign Act and the Uniform Electronic Transaction Act along with varying state laws.  Lewis Levey, Chairman of Computime, official distributor for Topaz signature pads, discussed the forensics used to ensure that the signatures are compliant.  Michael McKee, Business Development for Financial Institutions and Credit Unions at DocuSign, provided similar information for remote digitized signatures captured through DocuSign’s secure website.  Harley Dell, Account Manager of eDOC Innovations, provided a demonstration of electronic documents, electronic signatures and remote digitized signatures utilizing eDOC’s ProDOC Forms™, ProDOC Packages™ and eDOCSignature™.

“We are delighted to welcome IBEW into our peer group of CheckLogic users,’” said Bret Weekes, President/CEO of eDOC Innovations. “I am pleased to collaborate with them as part of our expanding west coast check imaging group of credit union clients! I’m just as pleased to see our partner, Corporate One, succeeding after such a challenging time for the industry.  It is a good example of what network business is about,” continued Weekes.

Karen Chesbro, head of eDOC’s implementation team reported that her experience with the credit union staff was “a delightful experience for our team. The staff was so easy to work with. We look forward to a long and collaborative experience with them.”

The CheckLogic™ platform provides a robust, comprehensive for Check21 and Item Processing. When fully integrated with eDOC Innovation’s eDocument strategy, credit union’s efficiency can reach new levels of performance for both staff and members.  CheckLogic support includes remote deposit for home or business.

“Our clients are embracing virtualized infrastructure at a rapid rate and the reasons are obvious,” explains eDOC Innovations CEO, Bret Weekes. “A virtual system is flexible in ways that physical boxes aren’t. This design will give our clients flexibility to tailor the deployment to the architecture they already have deployed without incurring extra expense of dedicated hardware,” comments Weekes.

The virtual appliance is hardware agnostic and portable across computing platforms. It drastically simplifies disaster recovery and is compatible with most existing VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V environments.  “With the eDOC virtual appliance solution, you’re not only simplifying and more quickly delivering this best of breed electronic document solution, you’re greatly easing systems management considerations by using a virtual appliance” says Matt Sawtell, AVP of Managed Technology Services at WESCO Net. “This solution also scales backup and recovery options from a continuous network based back to true high availability” comments Sawtell.

The International Year of Cooperatives has been organized by the UN as way of distinguishing the contribution that cooperatives bring to economic development through generating new employment, and taking part in a more collaborative social integration.

“Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility” comments Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General.

The United Nations recognizes cooperatives as “people centered businesses”. “As a CUSO, eDOC’s primary goal is to provide innovation to our owners and peers; innovation that creates value for each member that participates with the credit union” comments Bret Weekes, CEO of eDOC.  “Through the cooperative model, eDOC encourages each peer credit union to educate young individuals and recognize that the next generation will greatly benefit from working with their community to build fiscal responsibility” Weekes concludes.  eDOC will be announcing events to celebrate the International Year of Cooperatives in the coming months.

Christian George, Director of Compliance and IT at Washington Community FCU comments, “I am really excited to be taking our eDocument strategy to the next level. I think we will see a lot of competitive benefit from being able to offer innovative tools like eDOCSignature’s capability and the eDOC Member Document Portal”.

With ProDOC Packages™, Washington Community FCU will be able to offer an organized option for their members to keep track of important documents needed to fulfill loans, mortgages, and other official credit union documentation.

The brand is co-led by David Wordhouse and Matt Sawtell. David is VP of Network Technologies at CU*Answers, with ten years’ experience leading that firm’s network technology efforts alongside Jody Karnes, 18 year veteran and CIO of CU*Answers, also a contributor to AdvantageCIO efforts. Matt Sawtell, AVP of Managed Technology Solutions and ten year veteran of CU*Answers has a deep understanding of the relationship between business and technology and has worked directly on client technology initiatives of all kinds during his tenure. David and Matt also head up CU*Answers Network Services, a managed technology services brand of CU*Answers.

Services include executive and board-level strategic technology planning sessions, technology budgeting and forecasting, technology assessments, information systems risk assessments, IT policy development, business continuity planning, technical resource development and coaching. Each service is tailored to the demands of the client and has specific deliverables for the engagement. Some services such as risk assessments and technology plans feature recurring updates to keep them fresh and relevant.

“Technology in and of itself isn’t necessarily a strategy,” explains Wordhouse, “but leveraged properly it can make the difference in how effectively, affordably, and quickly, a business can achieve its plans. AdvantageCIO is about understanding your organization and plans and aligning technology to serve those plans, not the other way around.”

A virtual CIO service, the offerings are designed to be used on demand when needed and long term contracts are not required, but are available.

“We are very excited about this new service,” says Matt Sawtell. “We’ve seen tremendous need for these services consumed on demand without a costly full time employee, or to augment an existing position running into bandwidth issues. Our engagements are not just talk, we deliver specific materials and well documented plans so our clients have an actionable document they can take forward into their board rooms for long range business planning.”

David and Matt have already performed many engagements for clients in the financial services, manufacturing, and public services verticals. Wordhouse continues, “Every business that wants to run more effectively needs these services. Even though technology is becoming commoditized in nature, leveraging technology to good effect still requires planning and understanding. That’s what AdvantageCIO is all about.”

For more information or to schedule a consultation please contact AdvantageCIO at sales@AdvantageCIO.com or at AdvantageCIO.com.

Says Randy Karnes, CU*Answers CEO, “CUSOs are everywhere today, servicing mortgages, business loans, credit card portfolios, even investments. They’ve done a great job at manufacturing process, markets, and aggregate groups of credit unions.  But far too often they are only the customers of third-party software solutions, and have not gotten into developing direct solutions that could support their CUSO for years to come. We hope to partner with CUMD and these kinds of CUSOs in developing new technologies and evolving some of the solutions used in our network today.”

Jeff Jorgensen, CEO of Sioux Empire Federal Credit Union, says “partnering with CU*Answers on this first rollout of CU*BASE SE was an easy decision to make. We have a long history of collaborating together and building better mousetraps. Each endeavor has proven successful in bringing new services to our members.”

CU*Answers also said that CU*BASE SE will launch with solutions targeted at servicing mortgages and credit card accounts.  CU*BASE SE will include back office core processing for the CUSO staff, as well as web-based solutions—including online banking and mobile web banking—provided directly to members.

“For a CUSO to be successful, it needs to be more than just a one-trick pony when it comes to driving member activity,” says Karnes.  “It needs a servicing solution that can reach every channel, that includes direct marketing outreach to members, and that has a full set of technology solutions that can build a network of its credit union customers.  We have these products, and we plan to share these solutions with the CUSO community.”

Karnes promised that CU*BASE SE would be more than just a product, hinting that a new CUSO is in the works that would allow servicing CUSOs to be partners as well as customers.

“It might be an understatement to say that our conversion support teams have had a busy year,” notes CUSO President Scott Collins.  “Our partners over at CU*Answers and CU*Northwest (the Grand Rapids, MI and Spokane, WA-based data processing CUSOs) both had stellar sales years, which translated into a great pipeline of projects for our implementation teams.  Each partner taps us on the shoulder to provide back office support for every one of their core conversions and our collective teams have developed a very effective process that is embraced by the credit union staff as they learn a new set of tools.  During the past couple years; we have also seen an increased number of credit unions engaging the help of our agents for at least the first week to help assist members.  Both Park City and Port Conneaut directed calls to our center, which was a fitting conclusion to stellar year across the board.”

During the 2011 calendar year, Xtend assisted nineteen (19) credit unions with core migration projects, making it the biggest conversion year ever for their conversion support teams.  All converting credit unions utilized the CUSO’s back office services and eleven (11) opted for call center support as well.

When asked recently to comment on being in business for nearly a decade, CUSO President Scott Collins commented that “it was a lot like someone asking you about marriage, parenthood or graduation.”  Collins then elaborates further.  “When someone asks me how old the kids are, what year I graduated or how many years I have been married it makes me a little bit melancholy about how fast the time has gone.  The same holds true for Xtend.  When I came on board in March of 2003, we had big dreams but not much of an income statement. One of my partners liked to call it ‘champagne dreams on a beer budget’ and that still resonates in our business plan even after nine years.  It keeps us grounded and makes sure that credit unions of any size and complexity are able to plug us into their business plan.”

When asked if champagne was appropriate for the CUSO’s ninth anniversary Collins followed, “We will celebrate in a typical Xtend fashion – by rolling up our sleeves to help credit unions survive and thrive.  But I think a tenth anniversary will probably warrant some sort of toast.”

“Before we even completed the calls from the 2011 campaign, the two CUSO teams were already brainstorming on how we could make this coming year an even bigger success,” says Xtend President Scott Collins.  “Each year the offering has grown in both popularity and effectiveness.  The 2011 call program was utilized by more than sixty (60) credit unions, which was nearly three times the first-year participation.  I believe that sharing the success we are having with their peers across the board has warmed many CEOs and boards to the concept of proactively contacting members.  Our contact and lead ratios have increased steadily and member response has been overwhelmingly positive, so we expect the 2012 program to be our most successful yet.”

Collins noted that his teams have already signed up over a dozen credit unions and that calls were slated to begin in mid-January.

“It was an early Christmas present when I got an email from both Chuck (IVFCU CEO Charles Papenfus) and Janet (DMPOCU CEO Janet Lintin) letting me know their boards had approved the stock purchase,” said Xtend President Scott Collins.  “Our network is relatively new to credit unions in both California and Iowa, and having advocates like Chuck and Janet have already translated into a significant amount of follow-up activity for our sales teams.  I could not be happier to have them become our first stockholders in their respective states.”

Collins continues, “More than anything though, I am pleased that both were able to come to Grand Rapids a few weeks ago and participate in the annual CEO Strategies meetings hosted by our partners over at CU*Answers.  It gave them an opportunity to brainstorm with dozens of peers about investments that Xtend, CU*Answers and our network of CUSO partners could make collaboratively over the next several years.”

The CUSO is now owned equally by stockholders in fifteen (15) states.

Fairhope, AL.  October 11, 2011 – In the space of one year, Massachusetts State Employees Credit Union has seen its delinquency rate drop to 1.68% from  5.88%  through a joint effort with CU*SOUTH’s Managed Services Collections and Lending.  The team, which included MSECU’s  Ed Connors, Susan Killory, Fred Connor, Bob McDonald and Claire Sheehan,  worked with CU*SOUTH’s Rebecca Weemes to additionally recover over $65,ooo in charged-off credit card and consumer loans.

Equally important to MSECU’s goal of lowered delinquencies was the credit union’s ability to collect on the loan but not lose the member, an approach emphasized by CU*SOUTH.

“We are first and foremost member-oriented,” noted Rebecca Weemes, manager of MSCL. “We work for the credit union, and the credit union is the members. Restoring the member to good standing and redeeming the delinquency can’t be separated.”  Lack of communication often leaves members unaware of the credit union’s policies available to offer assistance in a hardship situation, said Weemes.

“One of the first things we do with the credit union is to identify struggling members who fit the credit union’s criteria for deferments, rewrites, modifications or other aid,” Weemes stated. “We can get some immediate relief, both for the member and the credit union, right from the start.”

Managed Services Collections and Lending has developed and refined an artisan approach to helping members, described by Weemes as “…completely unlike the disinterested, call-quota method used by third party collectors. It is remarkably effective in recovering loans and payments, and putting your member back in good standing.”

“Our business model has changed significantly in the last three years,” explains David Wordhouse, VP Network Technologies. “The old model created resource silos that didn’t allow us to respond to requests and opportunities at the speed we felt was necessary. This move, once complete, will better position our resources to more effectively respond to the changing market and leverage new technologies and markets we’ve not previously played in.”

WESCO Net offers a full range of managed technical solutions inclusive of local- and wide-area networks, wireless capabilities, network security, and customized application and cloud-based hosting with resources on demand. WESCO Net is a division of CU*Answers.

ChatterYak.com required a flexible solution that would grow with client demand. Security was also paramount due to the financial nature of the site. WESCO Net deployed a customized solution using their virtualized cloud environment—a solution scalable to meet client demand, capable of ramping up on demand to handle surges in traffic.

WESCO Net said that security is handled through the use of standard encryption technology, and layered network- and application-aware firewalls. “This environment will get Chatter Yak! the reliability and performance it needs to reach its clients and their customers,” says David Wordhouse, VP Network Technologies at WESCO Net.