AMOCO Federal Credit Union is identifying internal processes that will benefit from workflow automation built by software company IMM.
The $1.5 billion credit union has used IMM for e-signature and electronic documentation for more than 19 years, Nathan Ashworth, senior vice president of technology at AMOCO, told Bank Automation News. “Outside of a really elementary approach to just archiving documents consistently after they’re signed, we haven’t been using the platform.”
Now the Texas City, Texas-based credit union is creating a “buffet of workflows,” he said. “It’s in our hands, identifying the use cases, building, testing the workflows and rolling them out to train staff how to use them.”
The first areas AMOCO selected for automated workflow projects include death on account processes, account closures and client information updates, Ashworth said.
For example, closing an account requires several tasks, he said. The credit union needs to make sure credit bureau reporting is updated correctly if a loan is being closed; debit cards must be closed, recurring payments must be stopped; and web and mobile pieces of the operation must be addressed.
Those tasks were traditionally the responsibility of administrative employees, but now “we’ve created an account closure workflow,” that is automated, Ashworth said.
The workflow “goes department by department through that flow, making sure that no step gets missed.”
The credit union continues to vet processes in need of workflow automation, specifically those “in which we need that workflow and control and approval process built in,” he said. The credit union expects to be up and running with workflow automations in the fourth quarter.
Digitizing credit unions
AMOCO FCU joins the wave of credit unions that have invested in workflow automation.
United Bank of Michigan, for one, selected IMM for eSign capabilities within its client onboarding process, Eric Soya, vice president of branch operations at United Bank of Michigan, previously told BAN. Through IMM, the bank built a workflow process and document process for onboarding.
Similarly, Minnesota-based Sunrise Banks looked to document automation amid the payment protection program to enhance its ability to process high volumes of forgiveness applications, Chris Albrecht, senior vice president and director of Small Business Administration lending at Sunrise Banks, previously told BAN.
Accessing fintech tools
As credit unions look to IMM for workflow automation, they are now able to leverage that software’s capabilities as well as that of two more fintechs with Kinective, a fintech group that in June was formed when IMM, CFM and NXTsoft merged, Kinective Chief Executive Stephen Baker told BAN.
Now, bank clients are able to go to the single vendor for several solutions, Baker said, noting that IMM offers document automation, CFM presents branch modernization, and NXTsoft is an API connectivity provider.
Banks look for “efficiency, they want to limit errors, they want to maintain compliance and they want to offer new lines of businesses to help their revenue,” Baker said.
AMOCO has a standing relationship with both IMM and CFM, Ashworth told BAN. Bringing together IMM’s document workflow with CFM’s branch efficiency. “It’s got a lot of potential,” he said.
The question, Baker said, is: “How can we take these two technologies and build a front-to-back cohesive approach to get the most out of both technologies?”
For existing IMM, CFM and NXTsoft clients, Kinective brings a new menu of offerings, Baker said. For now, the tech providers will operate under their established names; however, Kinective is working to bring business units and support teams together under one operation.
