How South Metro Credit Union Revitalized their IT Systems
When Kent Engler started his role as President and CEO of South Metro Credit Union, one of his main concerns was the state of IT services in the financial institution.
“We had an internal IT that left the organization,” he says. “It created a large gap in our services all across the board.”
These gaps included systems not being upgraded and being able to work within the Fiserv DNA banking platform. They’d also been flagged during a recent NCUA exam for issues with IT policy and business continuity. To make matters worse, they were having difficulties finding a replacement for their previous IT specialist.
“One of the challenges of running a smaller financial institution is that I can’t scale up and pay the same amount for talent that larger banks do,” Engler explained. “I also don’t need that talent 100% of the time.”
The process started with Acute Technology Solutions coming in and reviewing South Metro Credit Union's IT status.
Fortunately, South Metro Credit Union’s previous CEO had brought on an IT consultant to help—Acute Technology Solutions. Their first task was to fix the issues that had been unearthed as the result of the previous NCUA exam.
“They provided immediate support to us,” Engler recalled. “David is very knowledgeable in the regulatory space, so he could help us get partners in the regulatory testing that we needed and helped design our policy for us. He ever walked us through disaster recovery business continuity tests for us. He built an infrastructure program that is really good, and we received very positive feedback from the NCUA during our last exam as the result of David’s work.”
Once Acute Technology Solutions had helped South Metro Credit Union fill in the gaps in their IT policies, Engler asked them to help them optimize their Fiserv DNA banking platform.
“If you don’t have someone on your team that understands how to work with Fiserv DNA, you can’t get things done,” Engler explained. “The expertise Acute Technology Services has within the DNA infrastructure is immensely important, and it helped us build this foundation where our credit union is going to have explosive growth and great returns.”
Engler recommends credit unions reach out to Acute Technology Solutions to take advantage of their services.
“They’re proactive and easy to work with,” he said. “I consider them a highly trusted partner that we plan on having a very long-term relationship with.”
In fact, Acute Technology Solutions has already helped South Metro Credit Union launch a new initiative.
“In the last year, we started underwriting first mortgages and doing in-house mortgage servicing, like setting up escrow accounts and paying property taxes and insurance” Engler recalled. “In order to do that, though, we needed a new module for MeridianLink, and that module had to be set up with both MeridianLink and Fiserv in order to work.”
It was a challenge that Acute Technology Solutions was well-equipped to handle.
“The Acute team was there with us every step of the way, getting that platform up and running, and getting the IT infrastructure set up for us,” Engler said. “We also had these new relationship-based features we wanted to do with various new products, and Acute stepped in and built all that.”
As a result of Acute Technology Solutions’ help, South Metro Credit Union is primed for success in the upcoming years.
“They’ve helped us build this foundation where our credit union is going to have explosive growth and great returns,” Engler said. “I couldn’t have done it without them.”
What has really stood out to Engler throughout his partnership with Acute Technology Solutions is the amount of care they put into their work.
“They care as much about the success of South Metro Credit Union as anybody that’s on my official payroll,” Engler explained. “I don’t think of them as consultants. They’re partners, and they’re an essential part of my team.”
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