CU*Answers recently kicked off a year-long research project to work with credit union leaders, business developers, and tactical units on designing strategies and tactics for the future of online and mobile tools for credit union members. The goal is to design new approaches for serving authenticated members, new ways of orchestrating the dance between the marketing value of a website and the actions of an online banking toolset, and new strategies for small-audience mobile apps.

During the CEO Strategic Developers Boot Camp, held the week of November 5-9, 2018, credit union CEOs brainstormed on the future of online and mobile tools from a big-picture, strategic point of view. Starting after the holidays, CU*Answers intends to communicate the results of the CEO Strategic Developers Boot Camp to all interested clients, to start coordinating a virtual community to participate in the research, and to hold a series of webinars to explain the project goals and to provide data to help with the specifications for the product or products the CUSO will be building in the future.

Then on March 26-27, 2019, the CUSO will be recruiting 25 credit unions who are willing to engage in a 1.5-day Boot Camp Task Force event to pursue the questions from a more tactical perspective. In addition to recruiting subject-matter experts, the CUSO is looking for credit unions who are willing to engage the CU*Answers Asterisk Intelligence team, enroll for the new It’s Me 247 Optics data gathering and mining service, and utilize storage in the data warehouse. Applicants will take an entrance test prior to admission to this exclusive event, after which CU*Answers will make a final go/no-go decision, complete the final design specifications and start engaging developers and implementors for pilot projects.