IBS Journal July – August 2015
Credit union like no other
Vancouver-based Blueshore Financial is a member-owned credit union that caters for the high net-worth segment. What is its underpinning strategy and technology?
Blueshore Financial Credit Union is worth looking at for innovation ideas. The credit union, formerly known as North Shore, has recently gone through a brand and strategy overhaul, increasing its assets under administration by nearly half a billion dollars in 2014, to $3.5 billion, loans by $225 million (up 10.9 per cent) and deposits by 17.9 per cent. All this was achieved without a significant increase of its customer base but rather by cleverly leveraging the existing relationships.
Community Forum in Istanbul. The credit union does not chase new clients, and is actually in a position to turn away pros- pects if it feels that they are not ready to be fully open with Blueshore or really com- mit to it. Smith explained that Blueshore is keen to provide holistic services to its cli- ents – which are its members – nurturing the community-building spirit, dedicated to improving their financial health and pro- viding ‘superior’ service that is truly focused on its members. Blueshore is a long-standing user of
‘Know your target market, know how to go after it and adjust your technology to suit.’
Doug Smith, Blueshore Financial Credit Union Blueshore describes itself as a niche
boutique for affluent clients in Vancou- ver. It offers a broad range of personal and business banking, wealth management, insurance and commercial lending services. It has around 40,000 customers, 315 staff and a network of twelve branches, which are designed and presented as ‘spas’. What are the key points? ‘Know your
target market, know how to go after it and adjust your technology to suit,’ stated Doug Smith, SVP, governance, at Blueshore Financial, speaking at the recent Temenos
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Temenos’ T24 core banking system (and is its pioneer in Canada), and is now also gearing up to implement Temenos Con- nect for digital and branch customer experience. It also runs Temenos’ busi- ness intelligence solution, Insight BI. Actually, it was the Blueshore team that introduced Temenos to a small Canadi- an vendor, Primisyn, that developed the Simplus system, which later resulted in Primisyn’s acquisition by Temenos and the creation of Insight BI as it is known today. Insight enables the credit union to segment its customers and analyse their behaviour, whilst Temenos Connect is hoped to provide ‘high quality expe- rience’ to the customers, said Smith. ‘We are a small organisation, so client experi- ence for us is key.’ Blueshore’s CIO, Fred Cook, described its long-standing vendors – namely Temenos, HP and Microsoft (the latter two assisted the credit union in the T24 imple- mentation and its adaptation to the Cana- dian market) – as the credit union’s ‘twelfth man’ (using the American football analogy). ‘As the resources are limited, your vendor can be your twelfth man,’ he said. Working collaboratively with the providers and ‘tap- ping into their expertise provides that extra support to take you to the next level’. The result is ‘a very strong solution brought to the Canadian market’, Cook stated.
spotlight: blueshore financial
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