CU*Answers recognized that credit unions needed a way to branch out from the traditional name-rank-and-serial-number details in the core processing membership files that could log social and life-cycle data to better manage member relationships, as well as interactions with members via automated channels. Thanks to the efforts of the attendees of the CU*Answers Data Boot Camp, what started as a simple vision of user-defined fields to “fill in the gaps” in member and account data tables has evolved into a new opportunity for credit union data analysts and thinkers to design the core processing database of the future.

“This is so much more than the just the ability to create a bunch of user-defined fields that will manage this data, from collection to maintenance to analysis,” said Randy Karnes, CEO. “Credit union data administrators will need to create a plan and work through gathering and managing how this new information will become part of the day-to-day responsibilities for their staff. But the increased yield of marketing and analysis efforts will greatly meet the needs of each membership.”

Using this feature as well as the new tool to add credit union comments to the Database Search feature will bring improved ways to manage ‘big data’.