Envisant, a subsidiary of the Illinois Credit Union League, has invested in fellow CUSO, Pure IT Credit Union Services. This capital investment allows an expansion of Pure IT’s innovative IT strategy work and will assist credit unions to compete for, and serve, more members.

Both Envisant and Pure IT share a common belief that innovative technology strategy is key to credit union success. The synergies between the two organizations focus on providing credit unions with access to innovative technology, strategy, and business intelligence.

“I’m thrilled for this opportunity to help expand Pure IT’s innovative services to credit unions in Illinois and across the country through our league partnerships,” says Tom Kane, CEO of the Illinois Credit Union League (ICUL) and Envisant. “Pure IT is a quality partner who knows credit unions. I look forward to working with them to increase credit union access to their business-changing services.”

“We are honored to partner with Envisant and the ICUL,” states Jack Smith, CEO, and Co-founder of Pure IT. “This move is exciting because it will offer robust technology services to credit unions of all shapes and sizes, allowing them to stay innovative while also meeting NCUA compliance and regulatory requirements.”

“Envisant is more than an investor in Pure IT, we’ve signed on as a partner and delivery channel to help credit unions build efficient infrastructures and develop strategies that fulfill member expectations,” says Libby Calderone, President of Envisant. “Customized technology services take member relationship building to a new level, strengthening brand loyalty.”
​
Pure IT is a trusted and valued technology partner that becomes an extension of credit unions’ technology operations. Envisant is functioning as a delivery partner, leveraging its extensive networks, to bring these technology services to credit unions.

The Credit Union League of Connecticut and its wholly owned subsidiary, League Services Corporation, are pleased to announce the launch of Aluvy, an online loan participation platform that will give more credit unions better access to loan participations at an affordable price.
 
Aluvy is a Software as a Service (SaaS) product specifically designed to help more credit unions access the unique benefits of the loan participation marketplace that have typically been available to larger lenders. Through the proprietary automation of one-to-many participations and payment servicing, Aluvy enables smaller credit unions to access right-sized loan participations. Additionally, larger or more experienced sellers will value having a greater volume of buyers with more diverse purchasing appetites.
 
“The development of Aluvy is a game changer for credit union sustainability,” said Bruce Adams, President and CEO of the Credit Union League of Connecticut. “Aluvy delivers efficiencies to sellers and creates tremendous buying opportunities for credit unions experiences and new to participations.”
 
In partnership with Virtual StrongBox™, Aluvy is equipped with secure digital storage, participation marketplace, automated payment processing, and tools to help credit unions manage their sold and purchased pools.

​Learn more about Aluvy and schedule a demo at https://lsc-ct.com/aluvy.

Payrailz®, a digital payments company offering smarter, more engaging payment experiences to banks and credit unions across the United States, announced a strategic reseller partnership with Michigan-based CU*Answers, a leading service provider for credit unions throughout the United States, where they will resell Payrailz’ Bill Pay, P2P, A2A and Pay A Loan services to their credit union clients.

CU*Answers provides services to over 204 credit unions in 28 states plus Washington, D.C., representing 2 million credit union members and over $27 billion in credit union assets. Payrailz will be CU*Answers’ preferred solution for P2P and loan payments for these credit unions and will provide a more modern UX experience for digital payments.

Payrailz enables multiple P2P recipient options, including real time capabilities which include Member to Member, Debit Card, the RTP network and more – making it even easier for members to send money to anyone. Payrailz’ solution provides a modern digital payments experience where AI and machine learning manages monthly bills and transfers for members – its solution also provides the same predictive and proactive experience for members making loan payments via card and/or ACH as well.

“We were very impressed with Payrailz’ vision for AI and the tangible ways they are improving the digital payments experience. Their ability to make payments predictive and proactive could be a game-changer for credit unions and their members,” said Scott Collins, Executive Vice President of National Sales and Marketplace Relationships at CU*Answers. “We also align with their commitment to operational excellence and are confident in Payrailz’ seasoned team to efficiently supply our credit unions with a more modern payments platform that helps them stand out in a competitive payments market.”
​
CU*Answers is a complete service provider for credit unions, offering a wide array of products to meet rapidly changing needs. Payrailz’ focus on real-time payments and transfers supports this effort to keep up with the latest industry developments and members’ shifting expectations.

“CU*Answers has an incredible network of forward-thinking credit unions. We are looking forward to working with them and proud to support them as they work to provide cutting-edge technology solutions for their members,” said Fran Duggan, CEO of Payrailz. “Payments are a critical part of any banking relationship, and with so much competition in the payments space today, our solution helps CU*Answers credit unions to stand up to that competition and give their millions of members the best experience available.”

This month, business analytics and talent services company Trellance celebrated the opening of its new office in Bangalore, India. The 30,000-square foot space is expected to house 225 new employees within the next 12-18 months, who will support the company’s recently launched Talent Services division. Staff in Bangalore will possess a broad spectrum of the industry’s in-demand, high tech skills such as cloud computing, programming, data engineering, data analyst, data scientist, core system developers, business intelligence, visual dashboarding, and system infrastructure. 
As part of the Bangalore office, Trellance is launching a new concept called MyTalentCenter. Through MyTalentCenter, a credit union can establish offshore resources in a highly-managed environment. Trellance replicates a credit union’s tailored infrastructure and highly secure protocols, while providing a separate physical place for dedicated talent resources with 24/7 monitoring. MyTalentCenter services are flexible and scalable.
 
Trellance President and CEO Tom Davis was in Bangalore for the ribbon-cutting, and said the new office is an important part of the company’s strategic global vision. “We are efficiently bringing the credit union industry the advanced technology and talent it needs to remain competitive in financial services,” he said. “We’re joining hundreds of U.S. companies that have a strategic presence in Bangalore to leverage its rich information technology resources for the benefit of our credit union clients.”
 
Bangalore is the capital city of the Indian state of Karnataka, a global center for the information technology industry. More than 2,000 IT companies have a presence in Karnataka, including 87 global Fortune 500 companies. The state also houses top-tier engineering and technical institutions, resulting in a large, highly-skilled talent base.
 
Paresh Shah, Trellance’s Offshore Delivery Officer and India Managing Director, will oversee Trellance operations in India. Shah spent 16 years working in the U.S. telcom industry, and has spent the past 17 years in various Indian cities, including Bangalore, helping U.S. companies establish an offshore presence. He said Trellance’s investments in India will provide credit unions with unique competitive advantages that are difficult to obtain elsewhere.
 
“India has a large population of highly-educated, English-speaking tech workers who are well-equipped for the global business world,” Shah said. “There is a significant cost efficiency advantage that allows credit unions to leverage three to four times more resources in U.S. dollars, which is very tough to replicate.”
 
Paresh went onto say that though there may be other service providers with an India presence, Trellance is set apart by its singular focus and deep expertise in the credit union industry. “Our team members understand the industry, its processes, workflows, and the specific types of innovation that are needed,” he said. 
 
India also has a modern IT infrastructure that enables high levels of security and the ability for global teams to work seamlessly. Additionally, the time zone differences between the U.S. and India, which are often half a day, allow for nearly round-the-clock business continuity.
 
This is the second office for Trellance in India. Its first India office in Ahmedabad is located in the western state of Gujarat and has approximately 65 employees. Trellance is currently building another office in the city that will hold up to 180 employees.

​SRM (Strategic Resource Management), an independent advisory firm serving financial institutions across the U.S. and Europe, announced its Cryptocurrency Advisory Services offering has evolved and will feature a new name – Digital Assets Advisory Services. SRM has worked tirelessly over the last 18 months to provide education on digital assets and help financial institutions with strategic advice on vendor selection and key compliance considerations to minimize risk during integration. This pivot better reflects the current breadth of the space, the certainty of more innovation to come, and SRM's unique role as a trusted consultant in the decision-making process.
 
Digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, associated blockchain and digital ledger technologies (DLT), along with the evolution of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the emergence of tokenized assets, continue to grow in popularity, priority, and adoption. As such, SRM continues to expand its knowledge of this space and its consulting footprint to help financial institution clients make the best choices to meet their customers' and members' needs and expectations.
 
SRM is involved in a wide range of emerging digital technologies that impact not just retail banking, but include wealth management, trust, back-office banking, corporate lending, payments, and treasury.
 
"Our team has deep expertise in digital assets and we keep a close pulse on how the technology is evolving so that we can help financial institutions develop a comprehensive, innovative digital assets strategy to serve their customers and members better," said Larry Pruss, Managing Director of Digital Assets Advisory Services at SRM. "The evolution of our practice – including the name – is important to us, as it will better reflect the needs of our clients, our growing international presence, and our continued involvement in regulatory discussions."

Janusea, a leading fintech company focused on integrations, has launched a new API Cloud Platform to connect financial institutions’ legacy cores with today’s growing population of fintechs. Janusea’s integration platform works by providing a common message set, developed with the community financial institution industry, that enables one message set to be translated to legacy messaging.

According to Janusea CEO Kyle Stutzman, fintechs don’t have to write to multiple legacy systems anymore, and credit unions and community banks don’t have to re-implement legacy connections for new fintech solutions. Janusea’s API connection can be used for all fintech solutions, connecting these two worlds and allowing more financial institutions to benefit from the latest fintech solutions.

“To put it plainly, Janusea provides the solution, not just a tool,” explains Tina Baker, Janusea Chief Product Officer.  “We fully host, integrate, support, and maintain all connectivity.  We solve the problem and enable innovation by connecting two separate worlds, bringing value to both.”

Baker says the lack of core integrations limits and confuses FIs who need to know if systems can integrate.  Integration limitations and ongoing maintenance impede fintechs' ability to implement and scale their solutions with community FIs.
Stutzman adds that many credit unions and community banks have limited resources and experience with their integrations and data sets.  “They need a turn-key integration solution and someone to help guide them through a quick and successful implementation, secure connections, and ongoing maintenance and support of the connections,” he says.

According to Terry McMullen, Janusea Chief Operations Officer, the technology firm took parts of the Kiva Group and Pure IT Credit Union Services to create this new Janusea solution.  This solution brings over 20 years of core data integrations, credit union, community bank, and fintech experience and connections.

“The combination of technology, people, and experience is powerful to connect these two worlds for a better future,” he says. “For added clarity, both Kiva Group and Pure IT continue forward with their missions and services but have contributed all key assets, people, and resources related to APIs into this new organization to transform integrations for community financial institutions.”

“Janusea is not the next single-focused fintech application.  It is not the next digital bank or credit union app,” Jack Smith, Janusea Chief Revenue Officer, says. “Janusea is the catalyst that will take what is currently smoldering and blow it up into a transformation explosion, leveling the playing field so that all fintech solutions and financial institutions can work together without barriers.” 

Lightico, leading provider of digital customer interactions, and Digital Customer Service (DCS) leader Glia today announced a partnership to make complex customer engagements—such as credit card, insurance policy or mortgage applications—easier to complete, as part of a seamless OnScreen experience.

The partnership integrates Lightico’s Digital Completion Cloud with Glia’s Digital Customer Service (DCS) platform for financial institutions, enabling a fully digital solution to complete online customer engagements without breaking the digital connection. This helps financial institutions lower their abandonment rates, increase conversions and drive growth while meeting the strong  demand for remote contact and online completion solutions .
 
“Glia’s Digital Customer Service (DCS) platform with Lightico’s Digital Completion Cloud enables financial institutions to meet and guide their customers OnScreen, across all channels, and help them complete even complex processes with eSign, eForm and secure payment solutions, fully integrated as part of the DCS platform,” said Steven Kaish, SVP of Alliances & Product Marketing for Glia.
 
Seamless digital customer experiences can significantly boost customer satisfaction, up to 20%, and improve OnScreen application conversions as much as four-fold. Conversely, whenever customers are forced to break the digital connection—to re-verify identity, sign a form or make a phone call just to reach live support—those numbers go in the opposite direction.
 
Glia’s DCS platform enables financial institutions to digitally engage customers at their moment of need and deliver a seamless experience with the ability to effortlessly transition across all channels, including SMS, chat, voice and video. Glia minimizes customer effort through collaborative features, such as CoBrowsing, to proactively guide and help them complete even complex tasks, such as a loan application or a mortgage form. Lightico’s Digital Completion Cloud complements Glia’s DCS platform with solutions that further streamline digital business. 
 
The integration allows the initiation of a Lightico session in real-time from within Glia’s DCS platform, to allow for seamless and instant eSignature, document collection, KYC, payment and more to be completed on customers’ mobile devices in a fast, secure, convenient and app-free manner. The joint solution allows for an end-to-end channel-agnostic experience that connects with a wide range of core solutions.
 
“I began my career in the contact center industry - and that is where the idea of the digital completion cloud first grew,” said Zviki Ben Ishay, CEO and co-founder of Lightico. “The partnership and deep integration with Glia brings this process full circle, allowing financial institutions to complete an extraordinarily wide and diverse set of interactions with customers in real-time on their mobile device. Our joint customers will experience massively improved completion time, reduced average call handle times and a significantly better customer experience - all of which drive improved bottom line results. ”

Pure IT Credit Union Services, a technology CUSO, has received a $6.8 million investment from a group of forward-thinking credit unions and credit union service organization (CUSO). These organizations chose to invest in Pure IT as an established and trusted partner to further the alignment of IT resources with financial objectives. This recent capital raise allows an expansion of the CUSO’s innovative work, which will help more credit unions compete for, and serve, more members.

The investing credit unions and existing CUSO investors include:

• Lone Star Credit Union (existing)
• Union Square Credit Union (existing and increased its ownership)
• DEXSTA Credit Union (existing)
• People’s Trust Credit Union (existing)
• Linn Area Credit Union (new)
• Ardent Credit Union (new)
• Envisant (fellow CUSO and the service organization of Illinois Credit Union League)

Both new and existing investors are bonded by the belief that innovative technology strategy is the secret for credit union success with limitless possibilities and is the future of the industry.

“What bigger compliment can you have than your own clients investing in you?” asks Jack Smith, Pure IT CEO and Co-Founder. “We were humbled by this generous investment and wear the CUSO badge seriously. As our credit union industry continues to mature and evolve, our mission is to help the industry achieve maturation and evolution to stay relevant and serve even more members. We’re excited about the future and how this new venture will help more credit unions succeed like never before.”

​Southern California-based Wescom Credit Union today announced that it is partnering with the Rose Bowl Operating Company and will be the sole presenting sponsor of the AmericaFest Celebration taking place at the Rose Bowl on Independence Day, July 4, for the next five years. AmericaFest is one of the nation’s largest and longest running shows to celebrate America’s birthday and the largest firework show on the West Coast.
 
“In working towards our vision of becoming Southern California’s premier banking partner and making a difference in the communities we serve, we partnered with the Rose Bowl Operating Company to make sure this iconic celebration continues as a tradition in Southern California,” noted Ashely White, Vice President, Partner Development of Wescom Credit Union. “As the Official Banking Partner of the Rose Bowl Stadium, this partnership not only furthers our commitment to our communities but will also continue to support the city of Pasadena, where we call home.”
 
Tens of thousands of patrons are expected to gather for a day full of tailgating, celebration, and entertainment including a thrilling motorcycle stunt show by TNT Freestyle Motocross, a musical performance by Drake Milligan, and a world-renowned fireworks display.
 
In an ongoing effort to delight its members and celebrate its new partnership, Wescom is giving 100 members the opportunity to win a 4-pack of AmericaFest tickets to celebrate the holiday with their family and friends.
 
During the event on July 4, 2022, Wescom‘s full-service mobile branch, Big Blue, will be on-site in the Family Fun Zone in Area H starting at 1:00 p.m. Parking lots will open at 1 p.m., doors will open at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, July 4 and the event begins at 7 p.m. General admission starts at $20 and tickets can be purchased online: https://www.axs.com/events/435665/americafest-tickets.
 
For more information about the AmericaFest Celebration, please visit www.rosebowlstadium.com.

​Member Driven Technologies (MDT), a CUSO that hosts the Episys® core processing system from Symitar® to provide a private cloud alternative for core processing and IT needs, recently hosted MDT Connect 2022, an annual event that provides a forum for credit unions to network with peers, meet with technology providers and attend interactive sessions to help inform their member service and technology strategy.
 
At this year’s event, which was held on May 23rd-26th in Southfield, Michigan, nearly 150 attendees from over 50 credit unions attended. Of the attendees, 45% were first timers at the conference. Representatives from Jack Henry & Associates, Inc., Symitar and nearly 20 other technology providers also attended, hosting sessions and participating in the vendor hall.
 
Darrin Blankenbeckler, CEO of Sterling FCU, was a first-time attendee of MDT Connect. He commented, “After completing a remote conversion to MDT last February, we greatly enjoyed being able to spend facetime with the MDT team, deepening our relationship and sharing our insights and ideas with them. At the conference, we also benefitted from being able to connect with other vendors and learn about how their technology could support our credit union. We appreciate MDT’s open approach, creating a community of technology leaders that can help credit unions run the entire institution.”
 
There were 42 sessions at the conference. Greg Adelson, president/COO of Jack Henry & Associates, Inc., and Ben Metz, chief digital and technology officer of Jack Henry & Associates, Inc., led the opening keynote which provided an overview into JHA’s digital and technology modernization strategy. Shanon McLachlan, president of Symitar, hosted an additional keynote providing a high-level update on Symitar’s business model and company roadmap. Lastly, Mark Ostach, keynote speaker, author and leadership coach, led a keynote on fostering connection in a hybrid workplace.
 
Jamie Franz, IT director of Community Alliance CU, has attended MDT Connect for seven years. She added, “Being able to hear directly from MDT about their upcoming initiatives and technology roadmap is extremely valuable. The CUSO’s employees host interactive sessions and are onsite all week, providing the opportunity for credit unions to meet with them and ask questions. Networking with other credit unions is also a major benefit of the conference; we had productive brainstorms with like-minded peers around innovation, progress and growth.”
 
“Nearly half of this year’s MDT Connect attendees were first timers, demonstrating both our consistent growth and the value of the conference for credit union employees across all departments,” said Larry Nichols, CEO and president of MDT. “We’re thrilled to have another successful client conference in the books, providing our credit unions with a unique forum to establish and strengthen relationships, learn more about industry trends and make plans to enhance their member service strategy.”