In 2018/2019 we implemented a series of major projects that support a credit union electing to receive bill pay services from more than one vendor.

For example, a credit union that uses Fiserv bill pay may want to offer the Payveris P2P options to members as well.  Or a credit union might want to start moving members to Payveris while still supporting existing enrollees on Fiserv or iPay bill pay.  Mergers between credit unions using different bill pay vendors will also benefit from an infrastructure that allows them to retain both vendor relationships, whether for the short or long term.

This design assumes that no matter how many vendor interfaces a CU ultimately ends up supporting, either because of mergers or contract expirations, the credit union selects one key vendor to market as their standard offering for new bill pay enrollees.  In other words, for a new member just getting started with bill pay a CU would not be able to offer both Fiserv bill pay and Payveris bill pay.  One vendor relationship is the default for new enrollments, the rest are simply grandfathered in for any members already enrolled in those other services.

Recent Bill Pay Projects

• The Fraud Block List project #50898 was implemented in the 20.11 release.  The project included a Bill Pay Enrollment Block List that allows members to be blocked from enrolling in bill pay services (any vendor) and allows a CU to prevent members from using the online enrollment feature.  Read more about this in the Fraud-related Projects for 2019-2020 kitchen page.
• Project #51728 was implemented in January 2020 that creates a new optional flag so that credit unions can deactivate P2P services from being used via the desktop version of It’s Me 247 online banking.  Credit unions believe this will help them reduce instances of fraud related to the desktop platform.

Up Next

NOTE: All dates and priorities outlined below are tentative and subject to change without notice. 

• We’re in the design phase for changing how EULAs (end-user license agreements) are handled.  This is necessary not only to support the new multi-vendor infrastructure outlined above, but will also allow us to move to a system where each service has its own EULA presented at the time of enrollment, instead of putting everything into a “kitchen sink” agreement presented when a member logs in to online banking for the very first time.
• We are in the design phases of adding multi-factor authentication capabilities (i.e., sending an access code via text/email) for when members update personal information in It’s Me 247, including email address.  This is response to numerous requests from CUs specifically related to P2P fraud.  See the Authentication Enhancements for Online/Mobile Banking recipe for future updates on this project.
• A specification has been submitted for PS#55312 that creates a new tool to help credit unions mitigate fraud via bill pay and P2P channels by allowing them to un-enroll members who are enrolled but have had no recent activity.  The CU will need to provide a list of account bases to be un-enrolled, similar to how the self-service floods feature works.
• A specification has been submitted for PS#55727 that creates a new general ledger configuration for bill pay/P2P vendors.  This allows each vendor to have a unique settlement G/L account.

We also continue to gather a wish list for enhancements to the It’s Me 247 Bill Pay solution, including ideas about changes to the user interface as well as other enhancement ideas.  At this point we are focusing primarily on the projects outlined above, but we continue to welcome your feedback and requests to help us gather ideas for potential projects down the road.

Chef for this recipe:  SettleMINT EFT