IBS Journal September 2015


UK credit unions prepare to move to shared platform


Around 40 UK credit unions have signed up for the planned shared platform, which is underpinned by Fiserv’s Agiliti offering. The first recruits are expected to be live in the autumn, with all of them scheduled to be migrated during the following twelve months. This marks a considerable amount of progress in the last year or so, says Mark Lyonette, CEO of the Association of British Credit Unions Limited (Abcul), which won the bid in 2013 to build the platform. ‘This time last year we’d an awfully


long way to go in terms of pulling together the proposition,’ says Lyonette. This includ- ed articulating the business case for the association’s members. The pricing model was formulated in November (it is primarily pay-per-use) and the recruitment of takers began soon after, as Abcul sought to build critical mass for a project that, ultimately, is funded by UK taxpayers’ money as part of the Department of Work and Pensions’ Credit Union Expansion Programme. At its heart, the shared Software-as-a-


Service (SaaS) solution has Fiserv’s Signature core banking platform. It is delivered as part of the broader Agiliti offering. Agiliti, launched last summer, is an amalgam of around 18 Fiserv and partner products. It is hosted by Blue Chip. The solution is much more than this


system and the IT, says Lyonette. ‘What is differentiating our proposed offering to the credit unions is the whole operating model on top of the systems,’ he says. Users will gain an ‘industrial-strength’


approach to aspects such as compliance, policies, procedures and documentation. The value placed on this will be different from credit union to credit union but ‘it is all premised on doing it well, once’. There is also an agency bank arrangement with an as yet unnamed UK clearer which will pro- vide access for credit unions to UK Faster Payments and other clearing infrastructure. While not all credit unions will rush to have a fully-fledged current account, he says, this will be important for some. Around 22 credit unions currently offer current accounts. Another benefit is the front-to-back


nature of the solution, so that there is full digital banking support. ‘For many of the credit unions, this has been a major per- ceived benefit,’ says Lyonette. It will bring


24


straight-through pro- cessing (STP) and con- sistency across channels for aspects such as loan origination and mem- bership applications. For any of the credit


unions, this type of capa- bility would be difficult to gain without a collab- orative approach. The uptake has been from a representative mix of credit unions, says Lyo- nette. The sector is made up of a small number of relatively large and medi- um-sized credit unions, and a ‘very long tail of small ones’. One of those known to have signed at the bottom end is the three-person Kent Savers Credit Union. ‘All being well, we


expect the first credit unions to be live later this autumn. The first ones to cut over might feel that they will be gaining an advantage but inevitably they will be the guinea-pigs and with any pro- ject like this there will always be snagging and teething trouble.’ The fact that this is more than an IT project is being empha- sised by Lyonette. ‘The real criteria for suc- cess for many of them will be the way they manage the people change.’ There were some enhancements need-


ed to Signature for use by the credit unions but these were known from the RFP stage, he says. Until recently, the credit unions had paid retrospective dividends, rather than classic interest on savings products, and there is also the concept of the com- mon bond, with the need to apply to be a member and fulfill certain criteria, such as place of residence or eligible employer, to be accepted. These were not major changes, he says. Lyonette believes that some cred-


it unions are waiting to see what happens with the first wave of adopters and will follow when they feel comfortable. There were 362 credit unions across England,


© IBS Intelligence 2015 www.ibsintelligence.com Mark Lyonette, Abcul


Scotland and Wales at the end of 2014 serv- ing around 1.2 million people, of which 70 per cent or so are Abcul members. One potential loser is the main core


system supplier at present to the sector, Kesho Systems, which bid for the project, along with TCS Financial Solutions with the UK credit union user of its Bancs system, Citysave Credit Union. Kesho claims that its Windows-based


Curtains system currently serves over 80 per cent of credit union members. There is a revamped version, Curtains Too, which supports Microsoft’s SQL relational database.


A number of other credit unions,


including Kent Savers, have a system from Ireland-based Progress Credit Union Centre. It has been fascinating to see, says Lyonette, that its project has spurred more competition in the credit union space and has ‘woken up some suppliers’ in a sector where he feels there had traditionally not been a lot of innovation from a technology perspective.


Martin Whybrow


ibs news


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56