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CO-OP SPRINGBOARD ENHANCEMENT LEADS INDUSTRY WITH CROSS-PLATFORM ACCESS FOR CREDIT UNION CARD ISSUERS

No Other Card Services Application Offers Springboard’s Level of Seamless Access to Cardholder Accounts

For Release on November 30, 2021: 

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, California – CO-OP Financial Services is enhancing CO-OP Springboard, the credit union payments fintech’s proprietary card servicing application. Credit union card issuers can now service a more extensive range of member card accounts, including debit, credit and digital wallet, all from one application, establishing a new benchmark for the industry.

CO-OP Springboard is the only application of its kind available to credit unions. The technology brings together credit and debit account servicing across multiple processing platforms. From a single screen, a credit union employee or CO-OP Contact Center agent can quickly answer inbound inquiries, assisting members in real-time on a variety of fronts. Springboard encapsulates the benefits of CO-OP’s payments technology ecosystem, consolidating credit union work streams and processes into one application interface.

“Payments are the path to primary financial relationships,” said Bruce Dragt, Chief Product Officer for CO-OP. “That means every moment, every touchpoint across the payments experience must be stellar. The need for exceptional experiences certainly extends to cardholder service, which is more critical than ever before given the rise of digital transactions. E-commerce is new for many members. As convenient as they are, transactions from embedded payments, order-ahead apps and buy-now buttons generate questions. Members want fast, clear answers and, where necessary, fast, clear remedies.”

CO-OP’s vision for Springboard is for the application to serve as a point of entry into the powerful payments technology ecosystem the company has been building since 2016. According to Dragt, the approach to Springboard has been iterative and user-focused from the time the technology was acquired in 2017 alongside CO-OP’s merger with longtime strategic partner, TMG.

CO-OP Springboard has since been completely rebuilt on a cloud-native architecture, which enables accelerated development and simple pivots when market realities necessitate fast changes. Each new feature is based on deep user research, designed to address a specific member or credit union problem or opportunity.

“No other payments processor enables this level of seamless servicing on credit, debit and connected digital accounts from a single hub,” said Dragt. “CO-OP’s Co-Creation Council members, who collaborate closely with us to evolve Springboard, confirm our vision that friction-free access to a member’s complete account details across card types is an experience game-changer.”

For more information, visit https://www.co-opfs.org/Solutions/Integrate/Springboard.

 

About CO-OP Financial ServicesCO-OP Financial Services is a payments and financial technology company whose mission is ensuring the success of the credit union movement. CO-OP payments solutions, engagement services and strategic counsel help credit unions optimize member experiences to consistently provide seamless, personalized multi-channel offerings, while delivering secure, sophisticated fraud mitigation service. For more information, visit www.coop.org.

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Next Big Idea Competition Winners

2021 Next Big Idea Competition Winners & Runner Up

The Next Big Idea Competition is our version of the popular TV Show “Shark Tank” designed to showcase innovation, collaboration, and advancements among our industry.

We were honored to have our partners at CO-OP Financial Services sponsor the competition with a prize pool of $10,000. The award for first place was set at $7,500 with the second place winner receiving $2,500.

 

2021 Next Big Idea Competition Winner:

RenoFi

renofi logo

RenoFi enables Credit Unions to offer next-generation, home renovation loans that better meet the needs of today’s homeowners.

2nd place awarded to:

Silvur

Silvur is the first and only app designed to support Americans aged 50+ navigating modern retirement.


Special recognition goes out to the three additional Big Idea finalists mentioned below.

Each finalist presented innovation and drive for advancements within the industry and made it to the top five out of nineteen competitors for the Next Big Idea!

Equipifi is an Enterprise SaaS Solution designed to enable financial institutions to effortlessly offer BNPL solutions to their members.

Nu Direction Lending is the credit union friendly solution of the online small business loan.

Go Digital, Stay Personal: innovate to a new level of member engagement.

 

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2021 CUSO of the Year Award Winner: LoanStar Technologies & Honorable Mentions

CUSO of the Year

Each year NACUSO recognizes CUSOs pushing to make a difference within the industry through the prestigious CUSO of the Year Awards. The 2021 CUSO of the Year Awards consisted of nine candidates established for more than five years, and were examined on the following criteria:

  • Thought Leadership and Critical Thinking
  • Innovation in Organization Design
  • Value Created Through the Use of Collaboration
  • Implementation and Execution
  • Results, Outcomes and Performance

After careful consideration and interviews with the nine candidates, all of which had good stories to tell, the results are as follows:


2021 CUSO of the Year 
Award Winner:

• LoanStar Technologies

 

Loan-Star-logoLoanStar Technologies developed a point-of-sale Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) system with the help of 4 credit unions who are owners of LoanStar. They have taken loans that were typically high interest rate (i.e. almost predatory loans) at POS and changed to make a monthly payment members can afford without the high rates and fees. LoanStar has 33 credit unions on their platform, and they recently acquired CU Direct’s OnSpot business.  LoanStar expects to originate $1 billion in loans in 2022.

LoanStar is a full digital experience, the member does not have to go into a branch, they do everything online or with the organization who sells products/services to the consumer. LoanStar has a sales force to help sell to merchants (i.e. dentists, home improvement providers, golf card dealer, etc.) on behalf of a lender. They typically have only one ldner to a merchant, except for big merchants like Renewal by Andersen (window replacement), which is a nationwide relationship.

Andy Turner, founder and CEO, describes LoanStar as a atech company that helps credit unions make loans.  LoanStar has an advisory committee that includes credit unions owners and users as well as CUNA Mutual, to help guide the business. LoanStar is paid a percentage of funded loans, so is paid on a success basis, and LoanStar is profitable.  Andy said LoanStar will do $100 million in swimming pool loans and $10 million in laser eye surgery in 2021, and that LoanStar helps credit unions to generate new members, by offering BNPL loans that eligible members want to utilize.

 


2021 CUSO of the Year – Honorable Mention:

QCash Financial

 

QCash-Financial-logo

In 2005 WA State Employees Credit Union discovered members were using predatory payday lenders to help make ends meet and started QCash to help members with reasonable rates and financial education.  Ten years later, in 2015, QCash Financial was spun off as an independent CUSO to help credit unions across the USA serve their members short term cash needs. We felt QCash’s innovative solution to predatory payday lenders, ingenious approach to underwriting and leading-edge digital delivery as well as their growing impact deserved special recognition.

Approximately 157 million people struggle financially in the U.S. and 43% of Americans cannot handle an unexpected $400 expense. QCash does not use credit scores, they use relational underwriting (based upon the member’s relationship with the CU), and have less than a 5% charge off rate!  Members can get cash into their CU account in under 60 seconds 24x7x365 through their mobile app or the credit union’s website. QCash has both live event loans and specialty loans. Average loan size is $1,200 – $1,500.

39 credit unions are currently using QCash and QCash integrates directly with the Core system of the CU, and their system sets up the loan, setsup an auto payment schedule, etc. In Oregon, a credit union was offering wildfire evacuation loans through QCash. QCash is a SaaS platform, and they have a success business model, so QCash only gets paid when they fund a member loan for a credit union. Credit unions set the rates and any fees, and it is driven by what credit union goals are. The QCash platform is multi-lingual.

Since inception, QCash has made nearly 700,000 loans. Seth Brickman, CEO has a real passion about helping members and he looks at the number of loans they make each day as the number of families they have helped. QCash has 40 credit unions in their funnel. They recently went live with Wright-Patt CU in OH and did 1,300 loans in the first 3 days.