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Members using the mobile app from Coastal Federal Credit Union can manage their accounts, make remote deposits, and even monitor their cash flow with a “snapshot” of money going in and out of their accounts.
The cash flow feature functions like a simple “personal balance sheet,” notes Joe Mecca, marketing/advertising manager for Coastal FCU, Raleigh, N.C., with $2.4 billion and 199,000 members. It resets monthly, calculating total deposits minus total withdrawals in all checking and savings accounts, which offers a quick view for members to monitor their personal finances.
Members have embraced Coastal FCU’s mobile platform, offered through NCR, making it the second most popular channel after online banking, with more mobile contacts than branch and ATM sessions combined, Mecca reports. The credit union offers Apple and Android apps, a mobile Web interface, and text banking options.
Of its 104,000 members enrolled in online banking, 28,000, or 26 percent, are also active mobile users.
In addition to the cash flow reports, mobile transfers, bill-pay, and deposits are popular features. The latest app version also includes “Add a New Account” and “Apply for a Loan” menu options. These launch applications inside the app, allowing members to open checking, savings, certificate or money market accounts, or to apply for a credit card, vehicle loan or personal loan.
Coastal FCU introduced remote deposit capture in 2012 and now brings in well over $5 million in mobile deposits monthly, averaging more than 14,000 transactions.
“Mobile has been a welcome channel for us. It’s been well received, and the mobile deposit feature has really taken off,” Mecca notes. “Even as we’ve grown, the number of checks deposited per person has declined, but we still get a lot of checks.”
Coastal FCU is currently planning to launch a new digital and mobile banking platform this fall through ACI, but Mecca expects many of the same features, including the cash flow reports, to carry forward.
“I can envision in the future having more of those dashboard balance sheet kinds of options,” he says. “People consume information that way very easily. Snapshots of their accounts allow them to track their progress, to make better financial decisions, and to feel more confident about how they’re doing.”
Karen Bankston is a long-time contributor to Credit Union Management and writes about credit unions, membership growth, marketing, operations and technology. She is the proprietor of Precision Prose, Stoughton, Wis.
