Payment Industry Insider

Today’s entry is a repost of a topic being discussed over on the NACUSO blog.

Jim Jerving says that like death and taxes, you can count on two things in the financial services industry - the escalating costs of compliance and technology. Jim turns the discussion to our own Jeff Russell to talk about how collaborating with CUSOs can bring down the costs of technology for credit unions.

“We are an aggregator, we purchase technology directly from the best of breed providers, so we have the advantage of large purchases and economies of scale,” said Russell. “However, we don’t run a core processing system so we have to work to integrate our processes and products into the credit union’s core. Our products are ancillary - not shares and loans - so we have to work with lots of systems. We bring the costs down per installation by designing it on the front end.”

Aside from helping diffuse technology costs, the collaborative process also fosters innovation and fraud prevention among credit unions. TMG has hosted webinars and events that bring credit unions together to discuss issues and solutions, allowing everyone to benefit.

Although collaboration has it’s benefits, it is still the exception in the industry. Changing mindsets to get more credit unions to collaborate is often a difficult process.

“In our business, we have to win partnerships one credit union at a time. We have to be competitive with other providers, yet collaborative in our approach,” said Russell. “One way I look at collaboration is through participating with a group of CUSO leaders who meet monthly to discuss ideas. We don’t always agree, but we have free-flowing ideas about the future of credit unions and CUSOs.”

Are you collaborating to keep the costs of technology manageable? What other benefits have you seen from collaborating amongst your peers?

Please leave your thoughts on our blog or over on the original NACUSO post.