Mountain America Credit Union (MACU), based in a suburb of Salt Lake City, is placing a bet on instant loan decisioning.
In the past year, the credit union put an organization in place to plan the product roadmap at the company, and, given the limited resources every financial institution has to deal with, carry the ideas through to execution. The new group has apparently done its work well, since an instant loan-decisioning product is currently in beta and is expected to go live by the end of the month.
The exact launch date depends, of course, on the whims of the App Store.
“Many banks and credit unions do pre-screens and have the ability to take advantage of this and approve you in the app,” Rob Cummings, senior vice president, online and mobile banking at MACU, told Bank Innovation. But that said, MACU’s solution will be first, or among the first, to appear on the market. The instant decisioning will apply to credit card and personal loans first, then later, likely August, for auto loans and other loan products.
“Young people in particular go their apps and expect things to happen in real time,” Cummings said. “But instant funding is not the norm for the industry.” Cummings came to the credit union from Seamless Web, and brought with him the mission of delighting the customer. That meant pushing the company’s resources in the direction of a superior customer experience.
The 85-branch MACU has long been known for being out in front in terms of technology, being an early partner of MoneyDesktop, now MX. The company has also partnered with EyeVerify, which recently participated in the Wells Fargo accelerator program, to produce retina prints of customers for authenticating transactions. This program, currently in beta, will roll out this summer, Cummings said. MACU already uses fingerprint authentication on smartphones.
To get its technology in front of customers, MACU fields a tech champion in every branch who evangelizes for the credit union’s mobile and online offerings. It is also working on rolling out EMV cards, but its card provider is facing, as might be expected, heavy demand.
But MACU will make the October deadline. “They’ll be out in another month or two,” Cummings said.