Teachers FCU and Corridor Platforms Talk Credit Union-Fintech Partnership at GAC

Credit unions evolved rapidly after the COVID-19 wake-up call to adopt the necessary technology to survive and thrive. Considering how much the big banks use technology to bring in customers, there’s really no other choice.

Teachers Federal Credit Union has partnered with Corridor Platforms to redefine its approach to decision management by integrating state-of-the-art real-time credit decisioning capabilities to elevate member experience, optimize risk management and governance through automation, and catalyze growth at an unparalleled rate.

Our Co-Founder Sarah Snell Cooke sat down to talk with Teachers FCU Chief Technology Officer Suresh Renganathan and Corridor Platforms CEO Manish Gupta to discuss their partnership and how credit unions can keep up in this technologically advanced age.

Read the full transcript below:

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Sarah Cooke 00:53

So welcome, Credit Union Connection audience to the GAC 2024. I'm here today with these gentlemen from Teachers Federal Credit Union Suresh. And Manish from Corridor. Welcome once you go ahead and introduce yourselves a little farther. Tell us about yourselves.

Suresh Renganathan 01:13

First of all, Sarah, it's a genuine pleasure being here. And thank you for the opportunity to connect with you. My name is Suresh Renganathan. I serve as Chief Technology Officer at Teachers Federal Credit Union. And I lead transformation programs across enterprise IT digital banking, data and analytics, payments and Enterprise Program Management. So it's been four plus years. Amazing journey, exciting, exciting times to work with Teachers as well.

Sarah Cooke 01:46
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And you Manish?

Manish Gupta 01:49

So I'm Manish Gupta, I'm CEO and founder of Corridor Platforms. Corridor Platforms is a company that's about six years old, are the founding group, came out of American Express, we lead data and analytics at American Express for a long time, the mission of Corridor is how do you make credit unions and mid-tier banks equal into best in class in terms of analytical capabilities and Decision Management? That's our mission. So Teachers is our first foray into the credit union market and, and that we are really, really excited about.

Sarah Cooke 02:28

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's certainly something that we've talked about for a while that, you know, credit unions have all this great data, and what can you do with it? Right? So how are you all using Teachers?

Suresh Renganathan 02:40

Know, at Teachers, first of all, we, the our investment in Corridor Platforms is a strategic move. That supports our continued transformation effort related to credit decisioning and automation, right. And certainly, we intend to use the Corridor platform, because it stands out for its scalable as well as comprehensiveness comprehensive solution. And we intend to use advanced features like advanced decision workflow, real time decisioning. And we introduced a robust built in governance and compliance, as well as comprehensive analytics utilization in the system. So that's what we intend to use. Ultimately, the goal of this is to provide more personalized, efficient and risk managed services to our members.

Sarah Cooke 03:43

Yeah, it makes sense. Of course, always, you know, need to take risks, but not too much. Right. Yeah. And so, you know, what are some of the use cases? I mean, you talked touched on a little bit, but Manish, can you talk a little bit about the use cases that pretty is could have with us? Sure.

Manish Gupta 04:01

at, you see, the main kind of change that's happening in the industry or in overall in banking is digitization. It's a finally after COVID, members and consumers are really starting to interact either on the deposit side or on the asset and loan side. And they expect to be able to discover things really easily on the internet. They want to apply and they provide the information willingly now, but you have to use it responsibly, and even provide your banking data to various institutions so that they have all the data and then they're looking for offers to be made that are relevant to them and they want decision instantaneously. That's the age we are in. If you don't keep up, then you're not going to kind of be relevant, so to a credit unions, members have always been a critical component, how we serve them, and now what the members need is this kind of real time know me completely give me the best offer and do it and do it instantaneously and be competitive with the Cap Ones, American Expresses of the world. So how do you do that? And so that's what we are trying to go on a journey through Teacher's right? So they have a lot of data, how do you organize all of that behavioral data that they have from their members, but as they expand even to prospects, you know, all of that data, our platform that sits on top of it, that could help them analyze that data, create insights across the journey, you know, who do you want to market? To? What how do you price them? How do you cross sell? And then how do you even manage them in kind of, you know, bad times or bad economics. So the idea is to, to transfer all of that capability and knowledge in a short time, but let them own it themselves. And with the help of the platform and automation, fewer people can do the job, because you have to do it more efficiently have smaller banks or credit unions. And hopefully, we have the same level playing field as some of the national cash.

Sarah Cooke 06:07

And that's exactly, you know, we talk about maintaining relevance and mentioned, also member of service, and it's being able to provide that member service, you know, you know, Bob's sitting across from you at the teller station, but now you're going to know Bob even better, because you see all the transactions that are going on in the background, you know, how to market to him then and you know, like, seems like it'd be much more efficient way to, to increase improve your ROI or ROA, for that matter,

Suresh Renganathan 06:38

Sarah, you said it very well, right. Teachers is one of the largest credit unions in the nation with a National Charter. So when you when you're that large, there are something we should consider as a core competency that should be done in house, right? Collecting the data, analyzing it, understanding the member behavior, and providing the offer at the right time, like Manish said, with efficiently is key thing. So that's a core competency we want to have in house. And that's one of the key reasons as well, to go with the platform and the mission for Corridor themselves is to build that ecosystem train us and transfer everything to Teachers. So we own the functions, we own the data, we own the platform, to power and propel our organization forward.

Sarah Cooke 07:28

Right? And that way, it makes it easier to adapt to your organization too. Exactly. Because obviously American Express, huge organization, but certainly runs differently than a lot of credit unions. But yeah, being able to have those competitive, or this new competitive advantage for a much smaller institution is yeah, it's powerful. Because I mean, we need more credit unions, who are able to continue being relevant, so they can continue the industry as a whole serving members, because credit unions is doing it in a way that a lot of others just can't or, you know, don't there's can't know their members the way that credit unions do. And so, but now we can know them through their data as well. So it's, it's pretty exciting times for the evolution of credit unions and so very,

Suresh Renganathan 08:21

very much if you see even even in the industry, right? We live in a we are entering into a new era, where technological advancements absolutely is evolving rapidly. And those who leverage the cutting edge technology, and, you know, keep up with the industry to provide relevant services to members obviously will achieve a competitive advantage.

Sarah Cooke 08:48

Yeah, yeah. And we have to think more strategically about technologies to be like, Okay, we
got the ATM guy, he's gonna come deal with ATMs and he's gonna get or this woman is going to be doing our, you know, cash handling, whatever it is. And now it's like, really thinking comprehensively and holistically about how credit is gonna leverage it to compete. Credit unions aren't each other's competitors. I mean, we are and we aren't but it's really like, you know, Bank of America those guys are the ones who are who are gaining, you're taking all the the consumers because they have the technology. Anything else I always give you guys that I'll give you guys the final thoughts. Any words of advice for credit unions that are looking into a platform like this? I'll start with start with you Suresh.

Suresh Renganathan 09:38

Sarah, when you are evaluating a platform like this first start with the vision, meaning into the mind, in the mind, right. Second thing is do a thorough assessment on the platform, the vendors and the partners. Yeah, right. Bring your stakeholders early on into the process. Right well The rest of it, whether it's cybersecurity, whether it's vendor management, compliance, lending, lending teams bring them early on, because they bring a very diverse perspective. And that allows you to evaluate a platform in a way. And certainly understand. And the third point, very important point we talked about it is as, as a company as a credit union, what is the core competency? You want to retain, right? In this case, retaining your data, retaining your analytical capability is key. And what do you want to outsource is key thing. So, when you bring in that order, it absolutely allows us to pick the right platform and propel our company forward and position us for growth. Yeah,

Sarah Cooke 10:45

no, and I know I said, final, that's your final thought you get the last word. But no, it's so important that bringing in those other people to you, because it's not just in IT thing, all is going to affect everybody in the credit union. How about you Manish, last words?

Manish Gupta 11:02

just paraphrase what he said. It is very, very important to learn from others in the industry, because that's when you can really propel yourself forward, if you have to relearn everything, yourself. It's a very slow drain. And the good thing is a lot of work has been done outside of the banking industry, when it comes to just decision management using data, big data, AI, and within the banking industry, at least by the national players, right? So but you can't be left behind. So the the what what we can provide is how do you efficiently transfer over that knowledge in a in a quick way to credit us like Teachers, obviously, they have to be willing to transform. And that's the great thing about Teachers the leadership through and through is completely vision driven that they have to transform and serve their members. And if you do that, then we can we can only help can we can give the platform and the learnings. And like he said the idea of the platform is can we automate governance, automate a lot of those manual things and show kind of a pathway of you know, what's the best way to do it right, the first, first time a lot of money is spent when you do it wrong, and learn as you go. And you don't have to do that anymore. So we show all of that, and then they take over. Yeah, right. And then it's, it's a journey into the future, because everything is going to be digital. It's not one small thing like unsecured loans, mortgages, auto loans, deposits, member loyalty is redefined, right, nobody's gonna stay with you if they can get a better rate somewhere else. And so you know, your members really well, we should take that advantage and never lose it. And the only way to do that is take all of that data plus take all of the other data people are using and have the same analytical capabilities. But do it efficiently do it with governance and do it with fewer people with the automation that technology can provide. So that's that is the vision. I think that's raishin. And his leadership as a captain, I'm so excited because if you want to get into a market, you want partners like that, so we'll just want to showcase how that will work, and hopefully help many more credit unions after that, as you said, the unions work together. Yep. So we are truly looking forward to that,

Sarah Cooke 13:18

ya know, and I think important thing you kind of hit on in everything you were saying was, it's about the culture. Yeah, it's the culture and changing that. Anyway, thank you, gentlemen. So much. Appreciate your time.

Suresh Renganathan 13:30

Hey, Sarah, thank you very much.