Associated CU, Norcross, Ga. added 1,790 new accounts and First Entertainment CU, Hollywood, Calif. added 154 accounts after automating their financial services.
Jeffrey Bergum of Associated CU said, "we've seen an increase in volume in our mortgage lending and secondary products like home equity loans" according to CUNA News Now.
Associated CU plans to add other products to their online selection.
Both credit unions automated their financial services with products available from Meridian Link. RTE Financial Services is a licensed reseller of Meridian Link products.
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Fed launches new plan to help money market funds
By Mark Felsenthal - Tue Oct 21, 11:58 am ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve on Tuesday launched a new program to fund purchases of $600 billion worth of money market mutual fund assets in the latest step to provide liquidity to strained financial markets. Full Article
Online Account Opening: Raising the Bar
Boston, MA July 24, 2007 – Report published by Celent Celent estimates that fewer than 2% of US financial institutions are offering automated online account opening capabilities today, a figure that will increase to between 18% and 20% by 2010.
Streamlining account opening processes is an imperative for financial institutions of all sizes in their quest for market differentiation and high customer satisfaction levels. Ensuring a fast and customer-friendly account opening process can help stem attrition rates, drive effective cross-selling, and have a direct impact on a financial institution's top line.
In their drive to achieve the ultimate goal of a universal, enterprisewide account opening platform institutions are finding that the online channel is a natural place to jumpstart their customer acquisition efforts. As credit card companies and direct banking stars have found, online origination can be a powerful tool for capturing customers and deposits. Financial institutions are eagerly seeking the most benefits associated with automated online account opening, including the ability to: capture client assets more quickly, increase account opening completion rates, reduce processing errors and costs associated with manual processing, improve cross-sell ratios, and standardize the decisioning process.
In short, automated online account opening can allow financial institutions to lower customer acquisition costs while improving the customer experience.
"Banks must focus on improving the quality of their interaction with customers at the point of acquistion across all channels or risk losing deposits to more nimble players. Ultimately, the goal is to implement paperless and customer-friendly account opening process that takes place in minutes, rather than days or weeks," comments Madhavi Mantha, author of the report and senior analyst. In the report, Online Account Opening: Raising the Bar, Celent provides an overview of the account opening process, discussing the challenges faced by financial institutions as well as the characteristics of a best practice enterprisewide account opening platform. The online account opening process application, from capture to account funding, is described in detail and the key requirements for implementing a streamlined and paperless online account opening solution are highlighted. The report also profiles leading vendors of automated online account opening technology including Andera, CashEdge, Online Resources Corporation, Parsam Technologies (uMonitor), and Yodlee. © 2007 Copyright Celent LLC. All rights reserved, worldwide.
Automating Account Opening In-branch and Online: A Case Study of Alliant Credit Union
Boston, MA April 4, 2007 – A new report from Aite Group reveals that Alliant Credit Union, on average, was able to drive 13% of new account applicants to its online system in the first six months after deployment, and examines the business case for automated account opening solutions, in-bank and online. Full Article
Account Opening Technology: the Last Mile in STP... Boston, MA - September 22, 2005 Aite Group believes that new tools available for online account opening will accelerate adoption, as more institutions attempt to manage costs by increaseing self service options. But the long-term benefit to institutions may be the ability to broaden their offerings across lines of business. Full Article