Top Tech Trends for 2006

thePoint
December 30, 2005

Credit union attendees at the recent Bank Administration Institute's Retail Delivery Conference in Orlando heard from two credit union speakers about top technology trends to watch in 2006.

The speakers were Tom Kroen, assistant vice president of IT for First Tech Credit Union, Beaverton, Oregon (who also serves as chairman of the CUNA Technology Council) and Brian Warfel, vice president of sales and service for Power 1 Credit Union in Pembroke Pines, Florida (who's also vice chairman of the CUNA Technology Council).

Kroen and Warfel told attendees to watch for these six technology trends in 2006:

Security and privacy. Credit unions must apply emerging technologies to secure member information and credit union systems. In fact, regulatory agencies will be requiring it. The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council recently issued a letter requiring financial institutions to adopt two-factor authentication for their Web sites by year-end 2006.

Electronic delivery channels. These channels, such as call centers and home banking, will satisfy more members' financial transaction needs. Call centers are evolving into multimode contact centers, and these contact centers will soon add video communications to the mix.

Open/integrated technology. Your future business solutions must use nonproprietary, open standards, such as a web services architecture, to integrate with systems already in place. When implementing open architecture, use the basics of change management: due diligence, documentation, and testing.

Evolving payment systems. Your challenge is to offer competitive payment products and find new revenue sources to offset the erosion of traditional payment methods. These trends will continue: declining check use, increasing debit card use, increasing ACH use for check payments and online bill payment, and increasing consolidation of the credit card market.

Risk management. Two big challenges in this area are business continuity planning and regulation management. Almost every new system or process implemented throughout your credit union has some form of risk management process or analysis.

Business strategy/IT alignment. Credit union IT departments are evolving from business enablers to strategic planning partners. IT staff must understand the credit union's long-term goals and each department's role in executing those goals. Once they have that understanding, they can improve processes.

This article was prepared by the staff at the Point for Credit Union Research and Advice and is published online at http://thepoint.cuna.org/. Reprinted with permission.