CU*Answers recently introduced a new dashboard to its CU*BASE^® processing system that is sure to impress any credit union looking for in depth, easy to use, membership analysis on their core platform. The 100% credit union-owned CUSO offered the new Patronage Comparison dashboard to clients earlier this year, which allows CUs to instantly compare the participation of two specific segments of the credit union membership, narrowed down in any number of ways. Population segments can be defined by the type of membership, reason they joined, gender, age range, tiered service level, and balance range, and then compared side by side on their account activity and patronage with the credit union. CU*Answers says this type of tool allows credit unions to better align future marketing campaigns and service/ product offerings.

In developing this tool, CU*Answers offered several challenging questions for how this dashboard might be utilized:

• What segment of a credit union’s membership uses credit cards the least, and are they a good target for a cross sales campaign?
• How are individual and organizational accounts different in their transaction activity? Should a credit union consider different types of marketing for the two groups?
• Are 20-30 year-olds generally in a good position to lend based on their average account balances?
• Is a certain segment of the population using a transaction channel far more frequently? Is it time to consider a new type of transaction service charge?

The CU*BASE feature will display the transaction activity for the two groups over the course of the last three months, with the ability to view either the group, per member, or per transaction average, segmented by the delivery channel used (e.g. online banking, debit, credit, ACH, etc.). Clients can then drill down further to see additional analysis on the comparison of the two groups, including their respective patronage. Lastly, credit unions can select one of the comparison groups and jump straight into the membership or account analysis to learn even more about the group (for example, the percent of that group using various electronic services).

Core processors are in a unique position to compile the data they receive on behalf of their credit unions and then to package that in a way that the credit union can execute on—CU*Answers sees this opportunity and has developed dozens of new dashboards to accomplish that goal with more in development. The Patronage Comparison feature represents just one of the many database mining tools included standard with its CU*BASE processing system. As with other similar tools, they said it is intended to provide a credit union instant access to key credit union data without having to create static custom reports or spreadsheets.