By Ray Birch
HOBOKEN, N.J.–The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t just changed how members use technology to interact with their credit unions—it’s changed how credit unions interact with their technology providers—including core conversions.
Case in point: the $60-million Hoboken School Employees FCU, which was concerned that members not lose access to their funds during the lockdown, even though it was looking to proceed with a planned move to a new core.
Ultimately, it pulled the trigger and moved forward with its plans, and in doing so learned some important aspects of moving to a new data system when face-to-face interaction is extremely limited.
HSEFCU CEO Bill Slootmaker told CUToday.info that in March he looked hard at the credit union’s plans to convert to a Fiserv Portico system, fearing any glitches could lead to member service issues.
“The last thing I wanted was for my members not to have access to their money at any time, but especially in the middle of a pandemic when everyone is on edge to begin with,” Slootmaker explained.
Bill Slootmaker
The schedule for the core conversion had been in place for months and was set to take place the first week of April. But that was the same time many states, including New Jersey, were announcing lockdowns.
“The pandemic conditions were extremely bad here because we're right across the river from New York City,” said Slootmaker. “The city of Hoboken had shut down even before the rest of the state of New Jersey. With a team of only three here, I had one employee working remotely just in case someone got sick.”
Complicating Matters
Complicating matters was the conversion date—April 1—which fell in the middle of the work week, which Slootmaker acknowledged leads to more challenges than the typical conversion that takes place on a weekend.
“I had to call in our one remote employee so we at least had three people at the credit union,” said Slootmaker. “But I had a lot of fear about what this would look like…We’re talking about things like hardware configuration, for example, for which we don’t have any expertise inside the credit union. And due to the pandemic, we would not have a Fiserv team on site. We would have to do all our communication with Fiserv remotely and I was teetering on whether we should do this or not.”
Adding to the risk was that Hoboken School Employees FCU wasn’t alone in lacking experience in such a scenario. It was also Fiserv’s first conversion during the pandemic, making it the first to be completed virtually. Slootmaker said after speaking with Fiserv, he felt comfortable moving forward.
“They gave me the confidence they would be able to provide the support I needed. So I was willing to go ahead with the conversion,” Slootmaker said.
‘Very Different’
Adam Appleby, SVP and general manager, Credit Union Solutions at Fiserv, said in order to make the credit union’s CEO feel comfortable with the process, it had to first feel good about the new approach to conversions itself.
“This is all new, and getting comfortable with this before we completed our first conversion with our teams being offsite was no easy task,” said Appleby. “We knew this would be very different.”
From Hardware to Training
The task involved numerous major steps that had to be handled remotely.
Adam Appleby
“We have to make sure the hardware gets set up, plugged in and configured so everything works the way it's intended to work,” said Appleby. “And then there is the need for training, which we had to do remotely, and we could not send the staff we usually have at the credit union for the initial support as things go live. We had to think about all of these things, and a lot more, very differently.”
Appleby said Fiserv staff needed for the conversion were literally made available literally around the clock.
“We had to leverage technology, which means cell phones with video cameras turned on to show Bill and his team, for example, how to configure things,” said Appleby. “This virtual team was available throughout the day at a moment's notice. We had to come up with some workarounds.”
Appleby said the two-day conversion proceeded at about the standard speed—not slower, not faster.
“But we did see some things move faster at times, really answers to issues and questions,” Appleby explained. “And that is because we did not have people getting on planes, riding in a taxis, or making time to go to their hotels. They were almost infinitely available. They were standing by at all times. I think Bill will attest to the fact the responsiveness was very good.”
A Two-Week Webex
As part of the conversion process, Appleby said Fiserv would open a Webex connection early in the morning and it would remain open all day. That process ran for two weeks.
“We had someone available to cover all potential questions Bill and his team might have. So Bill always had the expertise he needed at hand,” said Appleby. “He could tap into the right person immediately.”
Slootmaker agreed the conversion process went pretty smoothly.
“In any conversion there’s going to be some bumps, and we had a few here and there,” said Slootmaker, who noted some of the more difficult issues his team had to unravel with only virtual support included understanding how one system translated to another system.
Slootmaker said not having the traffic in its one branch due to the coronavirus pandemic, right before the conversion and in the days afterward, made the changeover easier.
“Again, we have a very small staff, and not having members inside the office gave us a lot more time to focus on the conversion,” said Slootmaker.
Thinking Differently
Appleby said d Fiserv completes about 40 conversions each year, and approximately five have now been done during the pandemic.
“But doing this remotely for the first time, and moving so fast due to the pandemic, we had to convince ourselves we could be successful,” said Appleby. “This pandemic has forced all of us to think differently about how we work with each other. I think what made the biggest difference was pulling in as many people as possible to support for Bill. For any issue that arose we had an expert ready to solve the problem, giving Bill and his team answers immediately.”