Data Quality for Credit Unions: Best Practices

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Data quality for credit unions is an essential component of effective CU management. Keeping accurate and up-to-date records, such as member information, enables credit unions to provide the best services to their members.

To ensure data quality, it is important for credit unions to employ best practices in data handling and regularly review existing procedures.

Let’s discuss the various data quality best practices that credit unions can adopt in order to remain competitive and be prepared for future growth.

Keep Your Small Data a Priority

Many of the biggest issues credit unions and other financial institutions run into when it comes to data quality and management stem from the small data.

Addresses, zip codes, name changes – these member data items are considered minute details until they become inaccurate. Maintaining accurate addresses is a great way to ensure your credit union communications don’t get sent to the wrong people. Anyone who has sent invitations via snail mail – for weddings, anniversaries, birthday parties, and other formal events – knows that even if you are only planning to send the invitations out two or three months in advance, there will be at least one address change on your list.

Because more of your members are renting than ever before, it’s important to request periodic confirmation of names and addresses so you can make sure you are reaching as many of your members as possible in an accurate and helpful way.

One way to ensure you are capturing the most accurate information and storing it correctly is to have systematic and periodic backups of your credit union data.

Define Your Goals

There are hundreds of ways to improve data quality at your credit union. But it’s important to start your process by defining the goals you hope to achieve within this effort.

What is the main issue you are trying to solve? Do you want to be able to update data faster? Are you trying to cull unnecessary data from your systems? Organize your data so it’s more accessible?

While all of these goals are worthy of your CU’s time and resources, you have to start somewhere. Many credit unions fall into this trap where they are overwhelmed by their current data and the vastness of their spread-out systems, and they want to start with a clean slate. But you’ll want to start working through those systems in manageable chunks, which then allows you to gain some momentum as you are choosing your new data solutions and crafting a future operation plan to maintain that data quality.

Track Your Data Quality Strategy

When professionals create strategies aimed at improving data quality for credit unions, it’s important to stick to that strategy and evolve as it evolves.

There is no end to data quality work. Much like there is no moment when you can stop optimizing your cybersecurity protocols and infrastructure, your data needs are constantly evolving.

And the only way to keep track of that evolution is to create a living, breathing document that tracks your strategies and performance, and allows for internal review and feedback. Of course, your first data quality effort may be massive, in scope and in project hours. But your periodic maintenance of that new data integrity must be maintained, and the best way to do that is to track your progress even after your initial undertaking is complete.

Work in Layers

You offer your credit union members a whole host of services, from in-person classes and financial counseling to online solutions, mobile banking apps, and more.

If you look at each of your services and features, you’ll often see linear member data trends based on usage, demographics, and more. We mentioned above that working in manageable chunks is always helpful. The same is true when you are trying to improve data quality.

You can use things like gender, age, economic status, location, and more to tailor your data efforts by building a strategy that captures and stores the data you need within specific parameters. Those parameters can be based on your efforts and services, rather than just being thrown together in a massive data catch-all location, and then working backwards to pull out the specifics you need for each service or effort.

Start with Personalization

Data is how you figure out what your members’ needs, behaviors, and preferences are. You can use your member relationships to initiate and expand on the personalized experiences you want each member to have when they work with you and your team.

By creating a data-driven culture with personalization at the heart of your operations, you can tailor each interaction with your member to make it memorable and efficient, without losing any of that stellar customer service quality that credit unions are known for.

IMS – Ensuring Data Quality for Credit Unions

Data quality will continue to be a hot topic in the credit union industry as we transition more and more operations to digital locations. And in a world full of increasing data storage and consumption, you’ll want the best tools to help you archive, restore, discover, and protect your members’ precious information.

That’s why IMS has a whole host of private cloud services that were created by professionals for the credit union industry specifically, including:

Reach out to us today and let us help you learn more about data quality for credit unions. 

Learning from the Digital Experience at Top 100 Credit Unions

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Credit unions are a popular financial institution for many, yet the digital experience offered to their members can vary greatly. There are lots of insights and ways credit unions can use the digital experience at the top 100 credit unions to augment and transform their own offerings and operations.

Recently, Finalytics.ai released its 2023 Credit Union Digital Experience report, which they call the “annual deep dive into the largest credit unions in America by asset size, to analyze digital experiences across the industry.”

This report evaluates credit unions based on several items, including website, online account origination, analytics, member experience as a whole, cybersecurity, and privacy offerings. We wanted to take a look at these findings and see what trends are emerging.

In the modern-day, digital experiences are becoming a cornerstone of the financial industry. Credit unions have been taking advantage of these advancements to better serve their members. By analyzing the strategies implemented by these successful organizations, we can gain insight into how credit unions can create an effective digital experience for their members and improve overall customer satisfaction.

Let’s examine what we can learn from the digital experience of the top 100 credit unions in terms of user-friendliness, accessibility and services offered.

Overall Digital Experience Winners: Here’s How They Did It

The top 5 credit unions when it came to overall credit union digital experience, were VyStar Credit Union, Alliant Credit Union, CommunityAmerica Credit Union, Wings Financial Credit Union, and Redwood Credit Union. In general, each of these institutions enhanced their members’ digital experience by providing them with the features, aesthetics, and overall experience they preferred.

CU UX (User Experience) Needs to Be Optimized

Finalytics.ai ranks the different categories on a scale from worst to best with scores from 1 to 5. The average user experience (UX) score was 2.31 out of 5, which shows a marked need for improvement across the credit union industry.

In order to improve your own credit union’s UX, product-focused primary navigation is a must. Though this seems like a no-brainer, Finalytics.ai found that slightly more than half of the credit unions studied actually had their products listed in their primary navigation – the website menu.

Members and prospects are often coming to your website for solutions, not philosophies. While your mission and community outreach are hugely important to your brand image, your CU website should cater to those looking for product- and service-based solutions to their current problems and questions.

Think of it this way: if you opened your favorite navigation app or website and had to click through three or four tabs before you could enter in your destination address or name, you’d likely find a new navigation app, right? The same is true for your members: if they need a loan, they want to be able to navigate to your home page and see a tab that will take them to the loan types you offer, or even a digital loan application form.

The member journey should be one that is reflected in the UX of your website. It spans multiple channels, touchpoints, and sessions – this means your online presence needs to help guide them through that journey with as little friction as possible.

Personalization Matters

We’ve talked here and on our sister site’s blog about the importance of including personalization at all steps in the member journey, and the Top 100 credit unions report agrees, naming it a top growth trend.

Only 7 of the top 100 credit unions in the nation are ranking on a deeper level for personalization, and only 21 had some level of personalization included in their online presence.

Along with personalization, segmentation of credit union audiences was also lacking. Those segments (which can include different audience targets and even primary navigation that helps those looking for Business Personal, and Wealth Management insights and products) were considered “well-defined” in just 30% of the website content analyzed by Finalytics.ai.

The Role of Security in the Digital Experience

Part of a credit union’s digital transformation strategy in 2023 and beyond will need to include the way we talk about and protect our members’ data and information. In the Finalytics.ai study, they found that security and privacy content consists of two primary areas: the credit union side (what they’re doing to protect their member information) and the user side (what your members can do to protect their own information).

One way to improve this score, Finalytics.ai found, was to increase the visibility and access to information pertaining to cybersecurity and personal data and banking best practices. If your credit union doesn’t already have a dedicated and highly visible area for users to find tips, tricks, and instructions for safe ways to use your apps, website, and other mobile or online banking offerings, it’s worth the investment to create those resources for your members.

It’s also important to communicate often and stay consistent with your messages to members about the state of your cybersecurity and other digital transformation strategy items. Transparency and honesty can often close the rift for prospects: if you can show your members and potential members that your credit union is committed to offering a similar level of protection that big banks can, it goes a long way in building trust in your brand.

Keeping the Momentum Going

Trust is the key to member satisfaction, and that means being intentional and transparent with your credit union’s offerings and operations this year.

Some exciting and positive findings in the Finalytics 2023 Credit Union Digital Experience Report include growth in all of the following: loans outstanding (16.2% increase year to year), shares and deposits (up 8.1%), and net worth (10.8% growth).

Finalytics.ai also had some insights into the top digital services members value and desire the most, which include:

  • Remote deposit capture
  • Digital cards that can be issued directly to a digital wallet
  • P2P payments
  • Digital wallets
  • Cardless cash withdrawals

With all that emphasis on increasing digital access and solutions, you’ll need powerful data and security solutions, and IMS has you covered.

With our IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) solutions, you can configure resources to meet your CU needs. You can skip the pricey setup and installation of an in-house data center and trust your members’ data to our self-service, enterprise-grade cloud IaaS that was built to meet your credit union’s dynamic needs.

2023 Credit Union Cybersecurity Predictions

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As technology advances, so does the need for heightened credit union cybersecurity measures. When it comes to cybersecurity, credit unions must stay up to date with the latest threats in order to keep their members safe and secure.

As the world of technology continues to evolve, so do the challenges of keeping our data secure. Credit unions in particular face a unique set of cybersecurity threats that must be anticipated and prepared for. We will discuss how credit unions can leverage digital transformation to protect themselves and their members from malicious cyberattacks as well as explore emerging technologies that may be used to combat potential threats.

In this article, we will take a look at what experts predict are some of the major credit union cybersecurity predictions for 2023.

Credit Union Cybersecurity Will Be a Top Risk Management Concern

According to a recent NCUA article, the top 4 risk factors affecting the financial industry in 2023 include interest rate risk, liquidity risk due to inflation concerns, credit risk due to housing and loan market concerns, and cybersecurity risks due to geopolitical issues and growing dynamic threats.

In July 2022, NCUA approved a rule that requires credit unions to notify NCUA no later than 72 hours after they reasonably believe a reportable cyber incident has occurred. They have created and optimized their ACET (Automated Cybersecurity Evaluation Toolbox) and offer many free resources and checklists to credit unions aiming to adjust and evaluate risk management concerns for the new year.

“Passwordless” Solutions Are at the Forefront of Financial Cybersecurity Solutions

“Passwordless” solutions like MFA (multi-factor authentication) will continue to be a powerful tool in every credit union’s cybersecurity best practices toolkit. As the use of cloud computing and hybrid work and customer service solutions rises, so does the need to ensure all data, no matter where it is stored or sent, is protected by more than a password.

Password auto-fill options like the Google Smart Lock system continue to be popular in both personal and professional settings, and that can create rifts in security. But with MFA, those rifts can often be closed or avoided completely due to the hacker’s need to have more access and devices in order to complete the authentication process.

Because apps and cloud usage have exponentially expanded the attack surface for credit unions, these new technologies require advanced solutions that look much different than the ones that previously governed in-house servers and networks.

Phishing & Email Attacks Among Top Cybersecurity Threats for 2023

A recent article from Forbes outlines the top 5 scams that businesses should be watching for in 2023. They include:

  • Business email compromise (BEC): this includes the use of fake email accounts to harbor or spread threatening software and includes phishing attempts, ransomware, and more.
  • Malware and Ransomware: due to the current geopolitical climate surrounding the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, many political cybersecurity experts believe Russia will use its resources to continue launching ransomware attacks against those governments and entities that do not agree with its current political agenda.
  • Crypto Scams and “pig butchering” scams: Named for the phrase “raising a pig for slaughter,” these attacks start with a friendly message that entices the recipient to create an online relationship with the sender (hacker). As that trust grows, the hacker will then start questioning the recipient about their interests in crypto in an effort to get them to buy into a website that is reputed to have made someone a lot of money, only for that crypto to be stolen from the recipient’s accounts.
  • Cybercrime cash-out process innovation: This is an evolving scam that started with hackers and bad actors asking unsuspecting and uneducated individuals to send gift cards or cryptocurrency in an effort to get around the “cash-out,” where payments that surpass $10,000 and other high-value transactions can be tracked and flagged for suspicious activity.
  • Scamming as a Service: Virtual marketplaces in underground websites are creating and selling end-to-end services that “enable low-skill threat actors to fill their carts and pay with crypto,” Forbes says. These services include full sets of stolen credentials, ready-to-deploy ransomware, phishing, other attacks, and more. Even the bad guys love a good package deal.

Multi-Year Strategic Plans Work Best for Cybersecurity Success

Because cybersecurity threats are ever-changing, credit union and financial industry leaders must be prepared to put their money and their time into multi-year strategic plans. Cybersecurity is a complex beast, and everything and everyone that interacts with a network can create potential threat opportunities.

A mix of internal and external threats are often already beginning to make their way through secure areas, files, and devices throughout the year, and an improvement in key performance metrics, like a decrease in ransomware or phishing attempts, is no reason to ease off or to decrease your institution’s budget for cybersecurity personnel, services, and software.

Organizations with Cybersecurity Network Architecture Will Reduce Financial Security Costs By 90%

Does that sound too good to be true? It’s a certainty by 2024, according to Gartner’s cybersecurity predictions for 2023-2025. Those organizations that switch to a more holistic cybersecurity approach that encompasses not just their devices and network, but all technology that has access to or is integrated with it, are expected to see a 90% reduction in the final costs of security incidents.

Credit union cybersecurity threats are serious and should be caught early to minimize damage and data theft. That’s why IMS offers Polaris Radar, an anomaly detection software that enables your system to recover more quickly and easily from an attack on your credit union network security. Don’t get caught unawares, especially when your members’ personal and financial information may hang in the balance.

Ransomware Concerns: Why You Should Be Fixing Data Management Problems

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Ransomware concerns are often categorized as cybersecurity issues rather than a result of data management problems. But there are emerging insights from the cybersecurity industry that underscore the importance of data management and other proactive technology programs and software in the fight against ransomware threats.

Here’s why you should be using data management to combat ransomware threats.

The Cost of a Ransomware Attack Is More Than Just the Ransom

Ransomware costs businesses more in the resulting downtime than it does in the ransom payment, according to TechCrunch.

Downtime causes a ripple effect that can be felt throughout your organization. From incident response measures to legal fees and support, not to mention the impact to customer experience, downtime caused by ransomware can get pricey fast.

Depending on the size of your business, that ransom amount can also be quite high. Your data management problems are only exacerbated by a successful ransomware attack.

Credit unions and other financial institutions are seeing a huge uptick in ransomware attacks, and that trend doesn’t look like it will slow down anytime soon.

IMS can help set you up for success and save up to 80% of primary storage costs, leaving you with more capital to run your business.

Good Data Management Is Always Learning

If your credit union were a smart house, data management is the technology that runs all your settings and cycles. Imagine your smart thermostat, for a moment. You can set it to learn how you manage your home’s temperature throughout the day. Pretty soon, the system will use these patterns to create a schedule that best fits your usage.

That’s how IMS’s machine learning works with your data. The software learns how your credit union employees and executives use data and where it travels, and it will notice when things go off track, like when someone tries to hack into your servers or gain access to sensitive data without authorization.

As your data management problems emerge, your IMS software can help you navigate to the most comprehensive solutions through compliance and data discovery tools.

Don’t Forget about the Big Picture

Your data is likely housed across physical servers, cloud systems, and other legacy processes. But because these fragmented processes can’t give you a good idea of how much data you have, or what it looks like in its entirety, you are setting your credit union up for failure.

To continue the house analogy: imagine you are at home, and a fire breaks out. When you submit your losses to your home insurance, you also submit photo and video evidence of your assets that were in the home – televisions, gaming systems, children’s toys, clothes, furniture, kitchen appliances, etc. Your insurance company then cuts you a check for your loss of those items.

If you don’t have this big picture view of your home, you may miss important things that were lost.

Your credit union data is the same. If you have no concept of the scope of your data, where it is, and how much exists, ransomware attackers can steal and corrupt files that are crucial to your credit union operations, but that you didn’t realize were missing until much later. Data management problems often require looking at specific data items and areas, but also need the context of your big picture data usage and storage to use as a framework or blueprint.

Visibility and pattern analysis (like those solutions offered through IMS Data Discovery) can show you what’s happening in every part of your data management system. Once you have this framework, you can see how your data is being used, who is using it, and when. And with machine learning, those patterns we talked about earlier – and any disruptions that happen within them – are easily traceable and visible.

The Role of Data Backup & Recovery

Preventing attacks should be at the top of the list of ransomware concerns. Much like driving a car or keeping your house locked, it’s easier to use defensive tactics to prevent issues, rather than to wait until the issues arise to address them. Even so, your credit union data is still likely going to be targeted by bad actors, and that means your reaction to an attack has to be as stronger or stronger than your attempts at prevention were.

Two important pieces of pulling yourself out of data management problems include data backup and disaster recovery.

Because ransomware often targets the data that will halt operations and cripple your credit union’s business, your data backups need to be housed safely, and at least one copy should – by best practice – be housed offsite.

And disaster recovery is your failsafe. Once the cybersecurity walls have been breached, disaster recovery is your most important next step.

Ransomware cripples people and businesses by leveraging the lifeblood of their operations – digital data. If you don’t set up ways to get that data back without going through the hackers, your credit union could face huge issues, up to and including the shutdown of your business operations.

Invest in the Best Credit Union Data Management Solutions

Data management problems require multi-faceted solutions. And IMS is your guide for cohesive and comprehensive data management strategies that fit your credit union.

For those looking to increase your effectiveness at preparing for and preventing ransomware incidents, IMS offers Anomaly Detection through a technology called Polaris Radar. You’ll be able to recover faster while increasing your system’s intelligence. See how your data moves and changes and let Polaris Radar use machine learning to detect and alert you of anomalous behavior. 

Cybersecurity Best Practices for Credit Union Lending

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Your credit union members are likely more worried about making sound and safe financial decisions, especially as housing and living costs rise with an unprecedented hike in inflation. In the last several decades, these costs have quadrupled in most areas of the country, while wages have yet to even double. That means your members and prospective members are looking for smart and secure lending options.

July through September is the peak lending season for most financial institutions, and you don’t want to alienate prospects by employing less-than-optimal lending cybersecurity.

There are several ways to incorporate cybersecurity into your credit union lending process and practices.

Start with a Good Foundation – Or Build It

Large, for-profit banks are the only organizations in the financial sector that can afford to create a proprietary system for loan processes. The rest of us, including your credit union, must rely on strategic planning, and smart tools.

Lending cybersecurity, like cybersecurity in other high-risk industries, can’t successfully rely on DIY programs to create a solid digital wall of protection around networks and systems within it.

Your cybersecurity program should have all-encompassing strategies, not just piecemeal solutions. Think of it this way: while you can build a boat with several hundred pieces of wood or metal and create a strong enough hull for the boat to float, you’ve now got hundreds of seams and potential cracks just waiting to be breached. Whereas, if you create the hull using something more akin to one seamless piece, your chances of water seeping in are much lower.

A good foundation includes things like reviewing your current digital landscape and cybersecurity. The first step is looking for potential security gaps. These gaps can be interwoven throughout this landscape: in data collection, storage, and encryption protocols as well as third-party vendor interfaces, mobile apps and platforms, servers, cameras, social media accounts, and more.

These things need to be audited regularly, starting from the first days of your newly integrated systems.

Simplicity is Key – But There’s a Limit

Lending cybersecurity mainly relies on the implementation of practices, education, and technology solutions that minimize the risk of a cyberattack. If you have fewer holes in your systems, that a hacker will find a way through them is going to be much smaller.

That’s why simplicity in your lending practices and tasks is key. The loan process is complicated by nature, but the more seamless you can make it for your members and your staff, the better the outcome will be.

User error is often touted as one of the most common causes of data breaches. The goal of your loan programs and the steps you employ to carry them out should be to create a user-friendly experience without skimping on network security and other precautionary measures.

For example, employing multi-factor authentication in parts of your data and lending information collection process is inherently more complicated than single-factor authentication, but you are trading safety for convenience. Two-factor authentication is still the best choice when it comes to collecting and storing lending data.

Finding the balance between “easy-to-use” and “optimal protection” should be the simple target you aim for in credit union lending cybersecurity.

Here’s a great article from Medium about cybersecurity in the mortgage process. It goes into more detail about how complexity is the “worst enemy of security.”

Automating Compliance Increases Lending Cybersecurity

Lending cybersecurity is not the only way to protect your credit union loan processes. In fact, much like the risks for cyberattacks have increased, lending compliance issues are also on the rise.

Because compliance is crucial to the efficacy of your credit union, maintaining that credibility should always be a top priority regardless of whether your credit union is growing, merging, or simply focused on optimizing current business operations.

There are several benefits to automating your compliance tasks. Automation is primarily used to ensure that there is no impact to normal operations and production. There is also no learning curve – compliance automation means machine learning drives for you – it is constantly improving and identifying potential violations of internal compliance policies by tracking sensitive data nd where it goes.

By automating your compliance processes with tools and software like IMS’s Polaris Sonar, you can quickly reduce sensitive data exposure without having to add to your current infrastructure or allot employee time towards completing these tasks.

Anomaly Detection – Recover Faster

Cyberattacks on financial institutions are inevitable – your credit union holds a wealth of assets and hackers are always looking for ways to exploit your security systems to take some of those assets for themselves.

And with ransomware on the rise, it’s important to implement the most effective strategy for recognizing ransomware attacks early and defending against them.

IMS has anomaly detection solutions with Polaris Radar to track your data changes over time, replace manual recoveries for minimal business disruption, and increase intelligence with machine learning.

Make sure your credit union lending and all financial data is never used against you for ransom. Learn more about partnering with IMS today by requesting a consultation.

Hidden Ways Your Credit Union Data Is at Risk

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The importance of protecting your credit union data can’t be overstated. Unfortunately, there are many ways your data can be stolen, corrupted, or lost. From less-than-vigilant password protocols to accidental deletions, malware, and more – each of these threats presents unique challenges and accesses specific vulnerabilities in your cybersecurity and other data systems and puts your data at risk.

There are also many undetected ways you put your data at risk. Many loopholes and vulnerabilities are often found after they’ve been exploited if you don’t know where to look or what to look for. Let’s discuss some of the hidden ways your credit union data is at risk.

Personal Device Usage

Personal devices are used for business projects and functions during working hours but are not company property. There are tons of different types of personal devices, and most of them are connected. This includes things like smartphones, laptops and tablets, smartwatches and accessories, and more.

When you allow your employees to use their own devices to carry out credit union business, you are putting your data at risk of being lost or stolen. Personal devices also aren’t held to the same security and update standards as your company-specific technology.

Device management is a major piece of post-COVID cybersecurity. Each device that connects to your credit union’s network is creating opportunities for breaches because it puts your CU and your member information in more hands, and not all of those hands will treat that data correctly. Whether the data is lost through malicious activities or unintentional employee mishandling, it’s important to think through the amount and types of devices that you want to be able to connect to your data and network systems.

Insufficient Backup Policies

Backups are diverse and indispensable tools for safeguarding your credit union data. But that doesn’t mean every backup works the same way.

When you are exploring and auditing your backup policies, it’s important to not only think about the time and convenience of the backup functions – making sure your backups are run regularly, capturing all your credit union data, and not hindering other network functions.

But it is also wise to think about how long it will take for your backups to restore your data. If an onsite server fails, do you know how long it will take for your offsite backups to restore it? Will it take a full 24 hours? Do you have adequate offsite backups?

The mistake here is installing backup software or protocols and then forgetting about it. These systems, though they should never fail, should be regularly checked to ensure that you are capturing all the data you need to be backing up. Business processes change, and IT protocols are always evolving.

IMS offers backup services tailored specifically to credit unions. That means these systems were built with your specific data types in mind. Your data backups are automated and your data is secured and stored offsite at an IMS data center.

Digital Supply Chain Weaknesses

The digital supply chain is essentially the network that is created throughout the supply chain to increase integration, dynamic processes, and predictive supply chain operations.

If you have third-party software that you used to create your credit union’s app, which then supplies products and services to your enrolled members, this is just one example of the different ways digital content and programming can intersect with and affect your cybersecurity and your credit union data. For example, a breach in 2021 involved the Kaseya supply chain. Kaseya offers remote management services that many credit unions in the USA use.

Understaffed and Overburdened IT Staff

Credit unions aren’t like big banks. Some are standalone small businesses with a handful of staff members that are diligently serving their communities. Other credit unions are large and can be run much like a corporation.

But right now, there are staffing shortages everywhere. The pandemic has caused what many are calling the Great Resignation, and that means more people than ever are overburdened at work.

And while this is a big hurdle to overcome no matter what industry or department you work in, IT shortages can be much more expensive than just the overtime and loss of productivity costs.

If your IT department isn’t able to keep up with all the day-to-day maintenance, employee and member requests, and other top priority items, something is going to eventually slip through the cracks.

The hiring shortages and issues aren’t going away quickly, and that means technology-based solutions should be your next step. Luckily, that’s what IMS has been doing for credit unions and credit union data for years.

Combat Known and Unknown Data Threats with IMS Today

IMS is the leading data management, backup, disaster recovery, and IaaS service provider for credit unions. Whether you are trying to increase protection from bad actors, unhappy employees, or unprecedented threats like staff mistakes and natural disasters, IMS can help.

Our private cloud services have been designed with credit union data in mind:

With these and other services, tailored specifically to your CU needs, IMS is the perfect solution to help assuage your data fears as we become increasingly reliant on technology and stored data solutions.

Why Your Credit Union Needs Offsite Backup

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Is your credit union considering implementing offsite backup services?

An offsite backup is a tool used to replicate your credit union’s (or any business’s) data and store it on a server or medium that is housed in a different location. While local backups are a good start, those backups stored on a hard drive or other media and are more geared toward protecting your data in the event of a small issue, like corruption of a single file.

Cybersecurity threats have been on the rise for several years, and the pandemic exacerbated that. Here’s why your credit union needs offsite backup.

Disasters & Storage Space

Your credit union is a financial institution that is dedicated to its members. That means the space in your branches and physical locations is better utilized when your data backups are housed outside of that location.

Offsite backups offer the benefit of keeping your office storage space to a minimum so you can house more staff members and member-inclusive areas like lobbies and private meeting rooms.

Storing your data offsite also means any natural or other disasters that affect your credit union operations will not affect your backups. Fire, tornado, hurricane, earthquake – your locations have their own specific weather threats that can disrupt or destroy data and data-housing hardware if all your backups are stored on-site.

Reduced Time & Cost

If you don’t have to pay for the technology that houses your data, and you don’t have to manage the backups, you can save time and money. That’s the beauty of offsite backup services.

You can outsource the purchase and upkeep of your data backup system by partnering with IMS to store your data safely offsite and to have it monitored and protected.

This also saves your IT staff and credit union managers and leaders time by removing some, if not all, of the data backup duties from their plates. Your credit union operations can continue efficiently and cost-effectively.

Increased Security

And speaking of protection, there are several benefits to offsite backup on that front, too.

Should your credit union or branch be hit with malware that affects your entire local network, your offsite backups are still safe. This can decrease the impact of things like ransomware and create great opportunities for near-seamless disaster recovery protocols.

You also remove the opportunity for human error by moving the data offsite. This way, files can’t be confused or stolen through employee error or malicious intent.

Offsite backups are disconnected from your main networks, so any issues you have with those networks will leave your backups completely unaffected.

Peace of Mind

Housing all your assets in one place is never a great business strategy, especially when those assets include sensitive personal and financial information. You and your members will be able to rest easy knowing that their information is protected in a data center with technology that was built to serve credit union needs.

Remote work and hybrid office spaces also mean that the availability of data has changed. Keeping all important backups in one place when your credit union may have people accessing it from unfamiliar homes and public networks has increased the chances of a malicious attack.

By incorporating offsite backup solutions into your business continuity and disaster recovery plans, you can ensure that the big disasters will have virtually no effect on the integrity of your data.

Cloud-Based Offsite Backup Solutions

IMS offers an automated, unattended backup solution that keeps your data from physical and virtual machines securely stored at an IMS data center.

Our could-based backup services are powered by Rubrik, the premier backup solution on the market. We provide fast and efficient backup that includes both on-premise backup and offsite replication.

Our Rubrik backup solution includes:

  • Backup & recovery
  • Continuous data protection
  • Ransomware Recovery Replication & disaster recovery
  • Virtualized environments
  • Windows & Unix protection

Your data is the digital backbone of your credit union operations. And more and more people are prioritizing security and continuity in their banking and other financial service providers. 

6 Benefits of Offsite Data Storage

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Colocation is one of the big players when it comes to digitizing your credit union processes and keeping your data safe and secure. Renting offsite physical space to house your data is a great disaster recovery practice, which should be a part of every credit union’s business continuity plan. Here are some of the top benefits of offsite data storage.

Business Continuity & Connectivity

Let’s start with something we already mentioned. Colocation protects your data no matter what happens to the physical locations of any credit union branches by adding redundancy to your system. That means your data is available nearly 100% of the time, ensuring near-perpetual connectivity. The chances of losing access to your data, especially with offsite backups, means your products and services are never disrupted by glitches or natural disasters.

Offsite data storage has become a necessary addition to business continuity plans considering the recent push toward expansive digital banking. 24/7 availability of services and products is something your members have come to expect from their preferred financial institutions.

Cost-Effectiveness

Taking advantage of offsite data storage has comparably low setup costs, and the fees included in maintenance are nothing compared to the guarantees it brings your credit union in terms of uninterrupted service and data loss prevention.

Flexibility

Because your system’s data is backed up in a physical location that isn’t tied to your credit union properties, you have more flexibility in your locations.

Restructuring branches, shutting locations down or adding new ones – everything is possible with offsite data storage. Tying your data backups to a separate location also means that you can optimize your own space for other purposes. No need to save rooms for extra data storage or redundancies.

Support & Service

Your credit union’s IT department already has enough to handle, with the major shifts to digital services. And your tech employees are worth more to your business when they have the resources and the time to focus on assisting members. With IMS colocation and private cloud services, you have access to data and IaaS support every hour of every day, including holidays and nontraditional hours.

Onsite and remote emergency support ensure that your data is protected and optimized, so you can get back to fulfilling your credit union’s true purpose – bringing great financial services and advice to your members.

Scalability

Just like your locations can be scaled easily when your data is stored offsite, your infrastructure and digital needs can be scaled up or back to accommodate whatever phase of growth or consolidation your credit union may be currently going through.

Maintain Control over Your Data

Offsite data storage allows for your data to be managed in a secure secondary location, but you still get to keep control over it. Take advantage if its scalability, customize your data solutions to cover your credit union’s needs, and get the support you need, no matter where or when you need it.

Make Connections, Protect Your CU Data for Good

Colocation services are a core part of your business continuity plan, and your credit union members and employees shouldn’t have to suffer when an unplanned emergency happens. Keep your data safe and your business thriving with IMS’s colocation and private cloud services.

Contact us for more information.

Lending Trends in 2021 & Beyond

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The benefits of digital lending are undeniable, and as more lending services enter your members’ market, it’s crucial to be aware of the latest trends in lending. Lending programs are being offered by more than just banks and credit unions – retail giants like Amazon are continuing to expand their financial services, aiming to create all-inclusive experiences for their current and potential customers.

Let’s discuss some of the latest lending trends in 2021 and beyond.

Lending-as-a-Service

With the emergence of fintech as a means to offer cheaper and faster online options for all banking needs, creating space in the industry for Lending-as-a-Service.

Lending-as-a-Service allows companies and brands to offer transparent, user-friendly financing solutions, rather than partnering with a financial brand to do it on behalf of the brand. This has recently made waves in the online automotive retail sector.

By using APIs to tie online applications to one another, your credit union’s lending services will need to continue integrating and streamlining lending services to capture more tech-savvy members of all ages who have embraced new digital solutions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Changes in Lending Trends Due to Member Behavior

As younger generations begin taking up more market share in the lending industry, your member needs also change. For Millennials and Gen Z, generations who spent much of their childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, avoiding debt is a top priority. And many of these people are willing to take out loans to consolidate and pay down their current debt. This means they are more debit card-forward than your credit union’s older members.

This change in member behavior comes with higher demand for offerings that provide lending opportunities with fewer features attached that also mitigate the incursion of additional debt.

Increased Solutions for Bridging Business Capital Gaps

According to FintechTris, another big shift in the lending world includes attempting to bridge the gap in business credit offerings: “Working capital loans, equipment financing, and lines of credit are now readily available for this user segment through non-bank alternatives.”

There’s also an increase in companies looking for partners willing to invest in unsecured offers. Companies are entering the lending industry by allowing borrowers to use refundable security deposits as collateral for loans, which then allows them to receive their deposit back after 6-12 months of on-time payments.

Fighting Fintechs for Market Share

Credit unions are faced with growing competition from fintechs, and the solution will have to be focused on transparency, flexibility, and peace of mind, according to CUNA.

The key to success in this changing lending climate is to leverage your credit union’s reputation and commitment to providing high-quality member experiences by creating great lending opportunities and offering sound financial advice as we move into 2022.

The Future of Your CU – Your Way

IMS knows CU-specific tech solutions the way that your credit union knows exactly what your members need – from financial advice to insight on lending trends. Let us help with your virtual desktop and private cloud needs.

Contact IMS to set up your consultation or call 888-356-6043 today to explore our solutions and services.

The Future of Credit Union Technology

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The last year or so has become the catalyst for credit union technology growth and change, driving member services toward digital solutions faster than they have ever done before.

Streamlined service and cutting-edge digital experience is no longer a luxury for businesses, it’s a necessity. Let’s discuss the future of credit union technology.

2021 Priorities: Cloud, Data, and Analytics

Cloud, data and analytics are the top priorities this year for credit unions looking to make big changes to their member experience standards, says the Credit Union Times.

Cloud solutions are quickly becoming vital to businesses across nearly all industries, as work-from-home opportunities increase in popularity. The ease of storing data in an easily accessible place no matter your physical location is a big boon to a credit union’s tech future.

And since so much activity has moved to online platforms, data and analytics are being collected and leveraged in more useful ways. For your credit union to better serve its community, you must know who you are speaking to and working with. Analytics offer hosts of great insights that can help with everything from choosing or updating hours of operation to running multi-audience marketing campaigns.

Bridging Accessibility Gaps

Credit union technology also proves advantageous for individuals who are differently mobile and more digital-minded. By offering digital credit union solutions, you are improving the accessibility and safety of your brand. Whether your members’ ability to come into your physical branch locations stems from a handicap or illness, lack of vehicle access, pandemic restrictions, or a preference for online dealings, credit union technology offers new ways for people of all ages and from all localities the opportunity to take advantage of your membership and services.

Kirk Drake of Credit Union 2.0 says this: “In the credit unions, not that they don’t want to make money, it’s about member service, we really want to get the member value in that ecosystem and they really speak a very different language about their mission purpose, values, and what they’re trying to do.”

Preserving the Partnership

Members don’t choose credit unions for the fancy tech or big bank offerings – they do it because being part of a credit union means you have a partner for your financial life and wellbeing. While technology is changing how that partnership looks, it’s not changing the impact partnership has on the member experience.

By partnering with technology, credit unions can provide end-to-end services for their members. Multimedia resources, chat and video conferencing appointments, and so much more can be built into your digital presence, to help ensure that your credit union and its partnership with your members remain meaningful and provide quality interactions.

Contactless Trends

Pymnts.com reports that credit union members have a high desire for contactless payments. And though this trend started long before the events of 2020, due to the rapid digitization happening across all industries, 98% of POS devices being shipped out now are enabled with contactless functionality.

For CUs, this means focusing on streamlining. It also means taking the time to understand member preferences and offer personalization that suits a wide variety of member habits and requests.

Upgrade Your Credit Union Technology

Your credit union’s member experience is paramount to your success. Information Management Solutions (IMS) has years of experience providing data center services to credit unions all over the U.S., and we look forward to serving your unique needs.

IMS has virtual private cloud services and solutions like core hosting, virtual desktop, disaster recovery, and more for your credit union. Contact us today for more information.