CUA pledges $24m for tech, loan origination platform

Credit Union Australia has put aside $24 million to complete its rollout of a loan origination platform and improve its digital offerings over the next year, leveraging the work done on its $60 million core banking platform.

The customer-owned financial services provider today posted an 11 percent increase in net profit to $48.8 million, and a record $3.35 billion in new CUA loans issued over the past year - a 55 percent increase.

The company attributed the growth in new loans to its BaNCS-based core banking platform, which went live at the end of 2013.

CUA CEO Rob Goudswaard said the platform had allowed CUA to deliver several new products over the past financial year, which contributed to the boost in lending as well as a 15 percent jump in retail deposits.

"The core banking platform will provide a foundation for continued product and customer service enhancements in the coming 12 months," CUA said.

It plans to spend the $24 million completing its loan originations platform, which was last year rolled out to personal lending.

The platform is based on a solution from Decision Intellect, which specialises in credit decisioning and workflow capabilities, and is complemented by a new document management solution and a digital user interface from Avoka.

It is underpinned by a Red Hat-based enterprise services bus, which exposes information from the core to any of CUA's channels.

CUA CIO Sue Coulter told iTnews last year the speed of processing and approval of personal loans had been reduced from several months to two hours, as a result of the new platform.

The $24 million set aside for technology in FY16 will also go towards improving the credit union's digital capabilities. 

Coulter has previously signalled a preference to partner with disruptive start-ups rather than build new loan and deposits products internally, given the credit union's resource and budget constraints compared to the larger banks.

“We have to remain relevant against the majors and Tier IIs, but we don’t always have the breadth of skills internally that we need," she said last year.

This approach resulted in the debut of CUA's ‘redi2pay’ mobile payments app, which it launched via a partnership with fintech provider Cuscal.

"Digital initiatives are a key focus," the credit union said today.

"This will include delivering a series of improvements to CUA’s mobile and online banking platforms, as well as upgrades to the website.

"To remain relevant to customers and maintain consistently high satisfaction ratings, CUA aims to deliver a seamless multi-channel experience across branch, broker, online and mobile channels for both banking and insurance customers."