By Ray Birch
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—It's been eight months since the two long-time CUSOs—PSCU and Co-op Solutions—officially combined and almost four months since the new organization unveiled a new name and branding—Velera. Now, the company is sharing more about what’s ahead.
“We're really being conscientious about what the client impact is,” said Cody Banks, SVP, product enablement and growth. “How do we make sure we're connecting these consumer experiences? A lot of our credit unions can empathize with two big organizations that merge. This is going to be a journey. We've been really deliberate about making sure our clients understand that. We have a strong investment strategy to ensure that our clients are competitive and staying ahead of the big banks down the street, and the fintechs.”
Banks explained that as the companies have come together, the new organization has been determining what the product strategy will be moving forward as Velera.
“We're at the point where we've made some decisions and we're going to be rolling things out to the market,” he said. “We've been working on how we frame up hundreds of products to our client base.”
Banks reminded the company only became a combined entity at the beginning of the year, unveiling the new Velera name during the THINK Conference in May that had long been a part of Co-op Solutions. That conference, along with what was previously PSCU’s annual Member Forum, has been retired and the company will now host a combined annual Velera event.
Reviewing the Market
Cody Banks
“As we started to figure out what Velera’s strategic direction is, we landed on a few different things,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we evaluated where our credit unions were, the market incentives and the drivers around the product sets with which we wanted to move forward. How do we make sure that we have speed to market, we're nimble and we deliver?”
The company is also heavily focused on technology.
“From an agility perspective, we've looked at different outcomes, as far as how do we connect these experiences,” Banks said. “Most importantly, we wanted to understand the impact of some of these decisions on our credit union partners. We have a dedicated client focus group that is helping guide us through this process.”
The New Roadmap
All of this has now culminated in a roadmap Banks said Velera is ready to begin talking about in greater detail.
“On the credit union side, we’re going forward with an investment strategy that focuses on two things: One, we want to make sure we're optimizing our clients’ operations. So, things like making sure that when members are calling in or walking into branches, they have the right tools to ensure that experience is connected to all others,” Banks said. “Velera, too, is focusing on CU efficiency from tellers, agents and staff persons.”
The company is also working on strategies that can help credit unions further improve their portfolios.
The Right Tools
“We want to make sure our clients have the right tools to be able to grow,” Banks said. “We've invested in many tools that are focused on things like consulting, marketing campaigns, loyalty programs and more. Really driving the data and making sure we're empowering our clients and using their data to win market share. Also, helping them personalize those experiences and do things like instant payments. How do we help folks work through digital lending? That’s the credit union side.”
The Member Side
On the member side, Banks said Velera is focused on connecting the experience at checkout.
“Thinking about how do we use digital payments, buy now, pay later, digital issuance, using shared branch rails…Really connecting that member experience and helping to democratize those payments,” Banks explained. “We've also invested in our business card solutions. We've got an ecosystem for helping small businesses, helping our credit unions read the market from a small business perspective—supporting what is an untapped and huge potential for credit unions.”
Linked Protection
And just as important as all of its other efforts is data protection, Banks said.
“How do we make sure that all of what we have just talked about is underpinned with a layer of linked protection—from detection and recovery. We need to make sure we're staying a step ahead of the fraudsters,” he said.
“We know that our clients are facing headwinds—compression on revenue and interchange, and regulatory pressures. Our goal is to make sure that we're creating this ecosystem of products that allow our clients to meet and exceed the needs of the market,” he said.