Articles and Press Releases

Over 30 employees met Wednesday to participate in the CU*Answers “Be an Innovator” Idea and Networking lunch.  These meetings encourage collaboration and provide employees the opportunity to present their own innovative ideas or ways to improve processes at CU*Answers.  This meeting was the second company-wide event.

Randy Karnes, CEO of CU*Answers opened the meeting with a keynote on the importance of innovation at CU*Answers and in the credit union industry.  After his address, seven employees presented their own original ideas to the group.  These ideas ranged from growing an employee mentoring program to developing an additional service for clients to enhancing the onboarding process of new programmers.   Attendees selected the idea they wanted to vet and worked for the rest of the meeting in groups with the goal of implementing the ideas.

Alycia Meyers, coordinator of the group, reported that people who participated in the event came from all areas of the company and held both management and non-management positions. “The feedback of the group was overwhelmingly positive,” she said.  “One person in management reported that he felt there was ‘good interaction between people working together.’ Other people liked the ‘support from management’ and the ‘open dialogue and small group vetting’.”

Randy Karnes, CEO at CU*Answers said about the group, “The innovators group at CU*Answers is designed to challenge to our corporate designs for innovations.  We value it as a volunteer-employee-challenge to the ways we drive change into our network.  A group to innovate on the processes of making things happen everywhere we can.  It takes practices to put ideas out there, to challenge entrenched, and to lead in bringing things to market both internally and externally – the innovators group project is to build that experience and for generations of CU*A participants to take ownership of the responsibility to champion our future.”

Be an Innovator lunches are scheduled every two months.  The next event is scheduled for July.

CU*Answers, the 100% credit union-owned, cooperative CUSO headquartered In Grand Rapids, MI has published a white paper focusing on assessing the risk of Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks (DDoS). The white paper was developed in conjunction with AuditLink, an auditing and compliance division of CU*Answers Managed Services. The document fully describes a DDoS attack and what credit unions can do to protect themselves and prepare for examinations from regulators.

“DDoS attacks are in the news and on the minds of examiners,” Scott Page, EVP of CU*Answers said.  “AuditLink has done a phenomenal job in providing guidelines for a credit union to assess their vulnerabilities and practical tips to address those concerns. A credit union needs to show they have controls in place and a grasp of what the business impact can be – and be able to show examiners they are aware and proactive. This white paper provides credit unions a valuable resource to do just that.”

For more information about DDos Risk Assessments and to read the white paper visit http://auditlink.cuanswers.com/ or contact Patrick Sickles, Internal Auditor at 800-327-3478.

CU*Answers, the 100% credit union-owned core data processor, announced its “My Favorite Reports” brochure series is receiving high marks from credit union executives reviewing CU*Answers. Credit unions stated that My Favorite Reports allowed them to quickly acclimate themselves to over sixty key reports necessary for successful accountability and compliance measures. A CU*Answers representative stated, “We are proud of the fact we have provided a method of retrieving information with overall ease and simplicity to the user.” Company representatives went on to say they will continue to invest in “dashboard” like programs well-liked by users of the CU*BASE^® core processing system.

The “My Favorite Reports” brochure series focuses on nine primary areas of credit union interest: CEO, marketing, lending, collections, auditing, accounting, teller, member service, and daily reports. CU*Answers added that the report series and reference materials are written by industry experts providing purpose and value to all CU*BASE users and professionals.

CU*Answers invites everyone to visit its website to learn more about the “My Favorite Reports Series” or by contacting expert Keegan Daniel at 800-327-3478 x209, kdaniel@cuanswers.com. 

eDOC Innovations and DigitalMailer, Inc. have partnered to integrate My Virtual StrongBox© for eDOC’s 2020eDOC Member Document Portal users. My Virtual StrongBox acts as a virtual safety deposit box for vital member documents.

“We are excited about collaborating with eDOC Innovations and its network of CUSOs,” says Ron Daly, President/CEO of DigitalMailer. “In adding My Virtual StrongBox as part of its product offerings and combining the strengths of our companies, we can help credit unions deliver not only a valuable service to their members, but also one that is ‘sticky.’  And where better to store your important financial documents and files than with your trusted credit union!”

“The concept of extending delivery of documents found in the portal to a virtual safe deposit box, where a member can also contribute to the content is a natural evolution.” said Bret Weekes, President/CEO of eDOC Innovations. “The collaboration of our CUSO and DigitalMailer will again demonstrate an intense commitment we have to help credit unions drive value to their members and to capture the business opportunities that have sustainable influences for the credit union.”

My Virtual StrongBox within the 2020eDOC Member Document Portal is available now! For more information on how to obtain the 2020eDOC member portal with My Virtual StrongBox email sales@edoclogic.com

A Collections Roundtable held quarterly for CU*Answers clients at their Grand Rapids location had a speaker from the US Secret Service in their March session. This was a huge opportunity for the Roundtable, which is CU*Answers most attended open forum, to have such a prestigious speaker. The hope was to get a handle on what the trends are causing losses and collection issues in general  and to give the CU*Answers’ client base of over 170 Credit Unions across the nation, a path to follow should something happen.

We were not disappointed. Kim Cheatle the head of the Grand Rapids office delivered a resounding class on fraud in currency, checks, credit cards, and wire transfers. Many people are not aware that the Secret Service is part of the treasury and therefore is capable and trained in financial issues and fraud prevention. “This was even more than we were hoping for considering their busy schedule,” exclaimed Jerry Collins the organizer of the Roundtable. “We were greatly impressed at the value of the presentation and knowledgeable details that were expressed. We would like to see this happen every few years to keep our clients up on their fraud prevention tactics to prevent collection issues. It’s good to know that our clients have another avenue available if they need help that local authorities do not have resources to conduct.”

CU*Answers announced that it had added another client to their Collections group. Greensboro Municipal Federal Credit Union signed on with the 100% credit union-owned CUSO in February. “The core objective is to have a team that can reach out to the members and make that first contact to determine how quickly the issue causing the delinquency can be fixed”, expressed Jerry Collins the Collections Team Leader.

Since many Credit Unions have shared resources for their team this isn’t done as efficiently as having another dedicated team doing it for them. The credit union can then concentrate on the more seriously delinquent accounts. This creates a win/win situation for both parties as the credit union saves money and gains efficiency and the CUSO is able to offer another value add service for their core data processor clients.

CU*NorthWest, an information technology CUSO based in Liberty Lake, Washington participated in a successful production roll-over test involving client credit unions and third party connections.

The test is part of the company’s ongoing disaster recovery strategy that includes high availability replication and EFT redundancy. CU*NorthWest has processing capabilities from both Liberty Lake, WA and Yankton, SD.

The roll-over tested improved disaster recovery and business continuity strategies along with near immediate recovery with state-of-the-art data replication technologies. Additional roll over tests will take place throughout the year.

“With each test we get faster at recovering and better at identifying and fine-tuning the process,” said Greg Smith, President and CEO of Cu*NorthWest.

CU*NorthWest, a core data processing CUSO will hold its’ annual Leadership Conference June 25^th-27^th at the Northern Quest Resort in Spokane, Washington. This will be the first time the event will take place at the Four Diamond Award-rated resort. The annual conference provides CU*NorthWest clients an opportunity to learn more about CU*NorthWest’s vision for the coming year.

Cuasterisk.com network partners will also be in attendance to educate CU*BASE^® GOLD users of the latest news and updates from each respective CUSO. In addition, the annual Stockholder’s Meeting will take place with two board seats to be voted upon.