Jason O'Brien
SAN ANTONIO—There is growing demand among consumers for more self-service channels to pay their loans—no longer will the check, phone or web cover all options, asserts SWBC.
In response, the company said it is working with credit unions on new ways for members to make loan payments, such as through mobile apps and allowing third-party payments.
“People today expect to be able to choose from a variety of options based on their unique needs,” said Jason O’Brien, SVP of payments, explaining that new payments solutions members are experiencing in their daily lives are changing expectations of the credit union. “Similarly, they expect effective and efficient service across whichever channel they choose.”
O’Brien said SWBC, which works with more than 600 clients in the payments space, has seen this demand building for a while. The company offers a mobile app that allows members to make a loan payment to the credit union from any financial institution.
Must Be Convenient
But O’Brien said the challenge in developing the best solution is that it has to be convenient and easy to use for members, but that developing functionality that works well for the user on the smaller screen of a mobile device is not a simple task.
“You have to make the user experience intuitive and not frustrating,” he said. “Everyone can complete a form on a mobile device, but what you have to consider is, how do you ask for information such as the account and routing numbers from a third-party institution? How do we confirm how much they want to pay? How do we confirm if they want to pay one time or multiple times? On a mobile screen real estate becomes an interesting challenge. You have to invest time in designing the user experience on a mobile solution.”
In addition, he observed, credit unions that have outdated voice response systems won’t satisfy the payment demands of members now becoming accustomed to new virtual personal assistants such Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri.
In seeking to meet the growing need for mobile loan payment, the credit union can’t overlook its voice response channel, O’Brien said.
“The CU has to consider the IVR space. We still see the old interactive voice response systems in place,” said O’Brien. “When you have all of these new voice response systems emerging, you can’t have a member punching buttons on their phone anymore. The older voice response systems simply fall short today. Credit unions have to move to natural language processing.”
Fintechs Driving Change
O’Brien acknowledged that the service-focused fintechs are driving some of this change in members’ loan payment needs, but stressed that the bigger impact is being made by companies members deal with daily.
“You are being compared to so many other businesses and providers now,” he said. “Customers are demanding much more from self-service channels. Self-service is the highest growth channel on our platforms. When you look at your payments strategies you must evaluate all of your channels, and consider the payments strategy across the entire enterprise. What flexible payment options do you enable for your members to pay their debts back to you? Do you allow those members to use cards, ACH or recurring payments across your channels—whether it’s self service or over the telephone with one of your employees? You want a credit union-wide payments strategy that allows for consistent, high-quality intuitive service on all fronts.”
O’Brien said SWBC is making significant investments in self-service channels today, including web, mobile and IVR.
“We have some exciting announcements coming later this quarter,” he said.