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A search engine to help prospective members find credit unions they can join to get the services they want is scheduled for public launch this month.
Credit Union Match is going through beta testing to evaluate how well the application sorts through the myriad membership guidelines of all U.S. credit unions. The aim of this online service is to “solve credit unions’ eligibility problem for consumers,” says Sam Brownell, founder of CUCollaborate, which is developing the application.
Based on the information users enter, such as where they live, work, worship, and volunteer, Credit Union Match returns a list of all the credit unions they can join. Then potential members can review the products and services those credit unions offer and select their favorite.
During testing and fine-tuning, credit unions were invited to confirm their field of membership set out in their bylaws. All credit unions will be included in the search tool for free but will need to login and confirm their field of membership rules to show up in search results, Brownell explains.
Credit Union Match aims to expand on existing membership search engines that provide results based on home ZIP code, which leaves a lot of credit unions out of consideration, notes CUES member Lynn Gregory, SVP/marketing and member services for $390 million Johns Hopkins Federal Credit Union , Baltimore.
“I’ve been advocating for well over a decade for a more comprehensive search site that works like a travel website or a dating site in allowing you to refine your search,” Gregory says. Johns Hopkins FCU supported the Credit Union Match crowd-funding initiative, and Gregory has been consulting with CUCollaborate during application development.
“I realize this has taken lots of work, but I was jumping up and down with excitement” on learning about the plans for search functionality, she adds. “I think we’re the best credit union for Johns Hopkins employees, and we’d like the chance to compete for their business.”
In recent months, CUCollaborate programmers have been coding and testing the field of membership rules for every credit union, a process that turned out to be more complex than Brownell anticipated.
“It’s challenging when the same rules can be written more than 100 different ways,” he says, referring to the community charter guideline of serving members who “live, work, or worship” in a specified geographic area.
This “rule play” will address all credit union field of membership requirements, including not only geographic guidelines but also employment (for SEGs), place of worship (for credit unions serving religious organizations), school/alumni affiliations (for educational credit unions), industry classification (for TIP charters), and volunteer associations. The goal is to “get as many choices to prospective members based on as few questions as possible,” he notes.
CUCollaborate plans to white label its search functionality to organizations that raise consumer awareness of credit unions or that help consumers find financial products.
“We envision CUCollaborate as serving as a shared backend of a new network that links the industry’s consumer-facing websites. That way credit unions can just go to one place to receive leads and to review and maintain their credit union’s information,” Brownell explains.
