Saving IT: How Credit Unions Are Cutting Tech Costs

Credit Union Journal
March 24, 2009 | COMMENTS

Ditch the Microsoft Office suite in favor of open-source productivity software — that's just one tip from credit union technology managers who are bent on saving money as the economy flails.

Since 2003, Genisys Credit Union here reports it has saved more than $75,000 on Microsoft Office costs by switching to the open source productivity suite from OpenOffice.org, according to Jackie Buchanan CIO at the $1.2-billion credit union.

Tinker Federal Credit Union of Oklahoma City would save about $200,000 annually if it follows a plan to move to OpenOffice in 2010, said Steve Mooney, vice president-information services operations at the $1.8-billion credit union. "OpenOffice is virtually free and would allow me to offset the high price of Microsoft software," Mooney explained.

$1 Million Saved

With the economy diving and banks getting the bail-out, technology vendors seem willing to bargain with credit unions.

In fact, the 20-person IT staff at Fairwinds Credit Union in Orlando, Florida, bargained its way into saving $1 million last year-primarily through contract renegotiation, according to Charlie Lai, CIO at the $1.7-billion credit union.

Thin Client, Thinner Expense

Tinker replaced 400 personal computers with thin client computers, for a savings of $240,000 in 2005, vice president of information systems Steve Mooney offered.

A Virtual Trove of Savings

A virtualization project in January saved Tinker $348,000 in architecture—plus will cut out more than $35,000 every year in maintenance, said Mooney. The credit union replaced 133 rack mount servers with four blade servers running VMware virtual software. Mooney said he wants to continue the savings by virtualizing the thin client computers and remaining personal computers at Tinker, for a savings of $659 per new computer and $47,000 in annual licensing fees.

Holding the Line

Tinker Federal Credit Union saves $385,000 per year from its Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP), installed two years ago, said Mooney.

That's because the credit union was able to get rid of about 70 circuits and renegotiate the price on a Gigaman circuit.

Tinker was also able to let go of three maintenance agreements related to its old analog system, he said.

Open-Source, Freeware Helps Credit Union Shave IT Expenses

Genisys Credit Union turns to open-source software and freeware to save money wherever possible, said executive vice president Jackie Buchanan. Beyond OpenOffice, Genisys uses the open-source AutoIT scripting language; PDFCreator; GNU Privacy Guard encryption; PuTTY client network protocols; Filezilla file transfer protocol; Bash Unix shell; Expect job automation; and Perl programming language.

"The Genisys IT team is very resourceful," said Buchanan. Genisys uses Perl scripting in combination with Harland Financial Service's UltraData task scheduler to automate the processing of more than 100 programs and recalls every day, such as start-of-day, end-of-day, backups, and report generation, said Buchanan. "We've saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff costs since 2003," she said.

AutoIT allowed Genisys to build a module that automatically re-issues compromised debit cards, she said. "This has saved us thousands of dollars in employee time, as well as reduced potential errors. We built this in 2007 after the TJX compromise."

TheUltraData OpenPath interface allows data exchange with third party platforms — for example, Genisys saves about $42,000 annually by automatically importing indirect and online loans into the core system, she said.

This article appeared at www.cujournal.com and is reprinted with permission.