7th Largest U.S. Credit Union Cuts Fraud Investigations from Hours to Minutes

Sponsored by OnBase by Hyland 

The Challenge

Even though $8.3 billion/285,000-member Alliant Credit Union, Chicago, had an enterprise content management solution, the credit union was only using it in a limited fashion – scanning, storing and retrieving documents in just a few departments. Alliant CU realized it needed a more robust ECM solution that could easily extend across the entire enterprise. That solution also needed to include an easily configurable workflow solution robust enough to automate time-consuming, paper-based processes.

“All accounts payable invoices were walked around the credit union to collect signatures,” says Heather Lally, VP/operations.

That all changed with OnBase by Hyland.

The Solution

In late 2011, Alliant CU implemented OnBase to begin automatically capturing documents and information. Now, more than 95 percent of the credit union’s documentation is electronic.

“But we wanted to do more than store document images,” says Lally.

So Alliant CU utilized OnBase to stop printing documents and instead access them electronically from multiple systems.

Developing a Fraud Solution—Together

Teaming up, Alliant CU and Hyland built a fraud solution with a goal of making sure it not only would be the right fit for Alliant CU’s needs, but would be scalable for credit unions of all sizes. The result was a system so easy to use, it took employees one hour to master.

By doing away with the need to traverse and cross-reference multiple Excel spreadsheets to track member identification, type of fraudulent crime, and amount of money involved, the solution saves several hours per day for Alliant CU’s fraud investigators.

It used to take Alliant CU four or five hours to pull a monthly fraud report. Now it takes less than 10 minutes. Further optimizing the process, OnBase’s case management solution allows investigators to easily log, access and interact with all data – including records, documents, forms and history – involved in a fraud investigation.

Now, at Alliant CU, they have a simple way to organize, access and connect so each piece of critical information, including information across various business applications. Investigators easily create new case records, update the status of the case and even link multiple cases together.

When fraud is suspected, a manager creates a new case and assigns an investigator as the owner. The manager can also add additional investigators to the case if needed. As supervisors assign cases, they can easily view the workload of each investigator through dashboard reports, re-assigning cases if necessary. Investigators easily enter essential case-related information and status updates. Each time an investigator updates the status, OnBase automatically logs the date, time and investigator’s name – keeping investigators informed and up-to-date. Investigators easily link multiple cases involving a single victim, allowing them to review all relevant fraud information for that client in a single location.

As a client’s case progresses, investigators add reminders with notifications, prompting investigators to continue moving the investigation forward. All this helps Alliant CU identify true fraudulent situations and occurrences so they can be resolved faster, limiting their damages and protecting their members.

“Using the Fraud Case Management solution, we now have analytics as well as the ability for multiple fraud analysts to work cases at the same time,” says Jason Knapp, senior manager of operations.

Empowering Work to Flow—Electronically

Alliant CU transformed its manual accounts payable process with OnBase and its powerful workflow engine. It easily built three mission-critical workflows: HR for onboarding, AP for invoice processing and Legal for contract management. Now, the credit union automatically forwards documents and information through processes – notifying stakeholders as it does. As an example of how workflow optimizes processes, if it doesn’t register an approval in due time, the system automatically escalates the request for approval to the next level.

“That reduces late fees from invoices potentially sitting too long on desks,” says Lally.

Another important workflow alerts managers when any one of Alliant CU’s 300 third-party contracts is up for renewal. Each point in the process of renewing or initiating a contract is tracked in the workflow, including due diligence, request for proposal and contract negotiation.

Optimizing — Enterprise Wide

Looking across the enterprise, the credit union sees other ways to optimize.

“We still have other manual processes. We want to create more efficiencies, increase accuracy and lower our costs through structured processing. This allows us to continue to move quickly to provide great service to our members,” says Lally.

The Difference

Reduces AP processing time by 70 percent: “Prior to implementing the AP solution, we had two full-time employees managing this very manual process. Now it takes one-half an FTE to manage the automated process, allowing us to redeploy those employees elsewhere. This was a big win for us,” says Knapp.

Streamlines fraud investigations: Reports that used to take four or five hours to produce now take 10 minutes.

Optimizes processes across the enterprise: Instead of searching file cabinets or file shares, all employees have access to the documents and information they need with a few mouse-clicks.