Last week, the Senate held hearings on the Southwest Airlines debacle that left holiday travelers feeling less than merry. The airline ended up showing extra luv to nearly 300,000 passengers in the form of reimbursements, according to The Washington Post. The disruption was caused by antiquated staff scheduling software.

A few weeks later the FAA had to halt flights for 90 minutes while the pilot notification system – one that alerts pilots to runway closures and airspace restrictions – suffered an outage, The New York Times reported. Outdated technology was reportedly to blame.

Two major travel snafus in just a short period of time, creating big headlines and headaches. Both tied to critical technologies that had been patched and band-aided far beyond their expected lifetimes.
As consumers, these are the minutiae of businesses we rely on every day that we assume are being taken care of, if we think about them at all.

Banking might not be any different. Credit union members don’t consider the intricacies of the integrations required for them to pull money out of an ATM or Zelle their friend their share of last night’s pizza money; they just want to move their money. But if these systems don’t integrate as they should or the code is left to gather dust, can you imagine the backlash?

For example, the technology credit unions’ connections with the Federal Reserve System run on are more than 50 years old. It’s had a facelift or two overtime, but it is essentially the same technology from the 1970s. Food for thought, which our friends at the Mitchell Stankovic Underground Collision: Shattered will be chewing on. Our CEO, Amber Harsin, will be serving on the panel, so we hope you’ll join us!

Credit Union Technology
Credit unions cannot control what the Fed does with its technology. What we can control is our credit union technology.

Your core processor is at the heart of that, so you can’t leave your credit union technology to just anyone. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind:

• The true cost. Not just what discounts some will throw at credit unions up front. Will there be hardware and software to be purchased and maintained? Does your credit union have the capacity and expertise for that management? What ticket items might your credit union get nickel and dimed for?
• Member service. Pure and simple – can it deliver at the level of service you want to provide to your members?
• Integrations. The modern credit union requires dozens (if not more!) integrations. Is your core willing to play nicely with others?
• Real support. How quickly can they respond to requests? What’s data recovery like in case of an incident? And at what price?

​Your credit union deserves advanced, member-centric, secure private cloud technologies that deliver efficiencies, member service and the security you need. When you’re ready, join CU Prodigy up here in the cloud – laying the credit union technology groundwork for tomorrow’s members today.