Revolutionizing the Credit Union Experience

Reseda Group is a catalyst for cutting-edge products and financial technologies to help credit unions build better for members and communities.

data, and provide some 90 different highly individualised money-related engagement scenarios to our members, to know and serve them better”

Just one of MSFUCU’s many partners, marrying fintech innovation with its own proprietary data has supported the credit union in growing its member base.

But, while leveraging tech will help find the right financial product mix for a member, another intuitive means of achieving this is improving the financial wellness of communities by providing access to financial education and promoting financial literacy of individuals and businesses.

A credit union made in the education system, MSUFCU provides the community with a large team of financial educators.

“We send them to schools and colleges, to be the education focus for students at all levels of understanding money management. We even lead a preretirement financial education service, education for buying a house, car, and various other budgeting tools.”

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Compliance front of mind

While implementing AI alongside machine learning and other tech innovations can boost customer satisfaction and backend processes, an important part of integrating fintech partners is to ensure technology is streamlined to the specific regulatory requirements partnering with a credit union entails.

Maxim notes: “When fintechs want to work with us, MSUFCU may be the only credit union they’re partnered with. So, along the way we are teaching them what it means to work with a credit union; what our regulations are, what our examiners care about; and what our compliance needs are.”

For Maxim, it is therefore important to make sure the onboarding process is robust and thorough. “We’ve built extensive compliance, risk and legal teams here at MSUFCU. So, for us, it’s imperative we thoroughly analyse any new partnership to make sure there are no data privacy concerns, no reputation risk, and if we’re using data, it’s important we’re permissioned properly.”

Nurturing an ecosystem

Establishing partnerships with fintech vendors is one thing, but nurturing an ecosystem, where each vendor plays into MSUFCU’s wider orchestral tune is another. While some vendors are commoditised, the “key differentiators”, as Maxim calls them (businesses tied to MSUFCU’s core banking solutions), are imperative to the credit union’s functionality.

“With a payment provider for example, like Visa, if they don’t do well or integrate into the broader scope of the credit union then that stops us running our business. As a result, we focus heavily on getting the right balance between our different vendor partners. But, we want these integrations as it makes us a stronger company and helps make them a stronger partner.

“We really want to nurture these bonds and share them with the greater credit union industry. That’s why we formed our wholly-owned Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO), Reseda Group, to start making investments in fintechs, to make sure we have the right partners on board and be a strategic advisor for them too.”

A fintech future

With a new branch recently opened in Detroit, MSUFCU is keeping its commitment to an in-person credit union experience, alongside the implementation of tech to create an omnichannel customer experience.

Maxim hopes the credit union’s growth will only continue. He concludes: “One of our major focuses is on branching, opening up in new markets while improving the offering in the places we’re already in.”

“So, we’re all about scale at this stage and we plan to overhaul all our digital channels to better support the fintech partnerships we have. This will make it easier for us to play, test new technologies in our ecosystem and pull it back if it isn’t working.”

“As we rework our website, online banking, our iOS and Android apps, we believe at MSUFCU that this will enable us to move forward significantly with our technology offering.”

Augmentation, not replacement

Furthermore, Maxim is all too aware of the dangers that trudging too far down the tech path leads to — community disconnect. This is why when launching the likes of chatbot

Fran, Maxim is always careful to make sure “it’s an augmentation of customer service, not a replacement for it”.

He adds: “Our approach now is combining digital and human service together, to create an experience that is both digital and human. Look at the pandemic. We all learned how to use video technology because it was the only choice.

“Well, we now have a video banking solution, to more easily connect to our members to our employees. This is how we combine technology to better serve and connect with our members, not distance ourselves.”

“But you always have to measure this with the members’ needs and understand what their feelings are. Are they going to use it? Are they going to be receptive to it?”

One thing Maxim feels will further enhance the effectiveness of MSFCU’s customer experience is a further augmentation of the credit union’s chatbot with generative AI.

“Leveraging AI, we are able to improve our member service with our chatbot to answer simple questions. It’s just about framing what the right use case is for the technology. With Fran, you can even just type “agent” and it will instantly redirect you if that’s what you want to do, so it’s just about providing choice.”