Background
Lone Star Credit Union, based in Dallas, TX, has $169 million in assets and serves over 11,000 members. The Credit Union was founded in 1967, and today has four branches and 41 employees.
The Challenges
Lone Star Credit Union sought to enhance its branch operations to achieve:
- Better Member Service: Front line and back office staff were unable to view the entire member relationship within one screen, impacting member service and efficiency.
- Evolving Technology Needs: Lone Star’s IT department sought an easy, secure way to maintain its technology infrastructure with regular software updates and service enhancements, while complying with all disaster recovery requirements.
- Strategic Growth: The Credit Union sought a flexible, modern foundation on which to offer new, competitive services like digital and mobile banking, relationship pricing, and remote deposit capture.
- Closer System Integration: Lone Star’s prior core provider lacked integrations to leading third-party solution providers, and offered poor client service.
The Solution
In July 2017, following an exhaustive search, Lone Star Credit Union converted its core banking system to Corelation KeyStone, powered by Wescom Resources’ UNITRI service bureau.
The Results
Better Vendor Management
Because Wescom Resources works with dozens of credit unions across the country (totalling $150 billion in combined assets), they’re able to provide guidance based on the latest industry best practices. Just as importantly, Wescom Resources is able to work directly with third party vendors to get issues solved quickly.
“Because Wescom Resources has such a strong relationship with Corelation, there have been times they’ve opened tickets on our behalf,” says Cruz Gomez, Vice President of IT at Lone Star. “They know the third party vendors we use, and they often work with multiple clients that experience the same issue. Their ability to consolidate all their clients’ issues into a single ticket helps when it comes to troubleshooting or setting up third party connections.”
Time Savings Result in Greater Efficiency
Lone Star has saved hours of staff time and enhanced operational efficiency by outsourcing core hosting to Wescom Resources.
“We’ve gained a vast amount of time savings and efficiency simply by switching to Corelation KeyStone and partnering with Wescom Resources,” Gomez says. “For example, it used to take an entire day for our accounting department to balance the ACH transaction report. Now it takes only a couple of hours.”
More Time to Focus on Strategic Growth
Because IT staff spend less time monitoring jobs and troubleshooting core banking issues, they can help other departments improve their processes and enhance member service.
“Wescom Resources enables IT to allocate more of our time to help our front line,” Gomez says. “We’re no longer tied to our desks, and we now have time to interact with staff and focus on what’s important for us here at the Credit Union.”
Greater Peace of Mind
With Wescom Resources handling core hosting, Lone Star knows that everything is always under control, even when unexpected situations occur.
“I can’t think of a single time Wescom Resources called us in the middle of the night with an issue,” Gomez says. “On the rare occasion that an overnight job run has failed, Wescom Resources has taken care of it for us. We don’t worry about anything after hours because we know we’re in good hands.”
“Wescom Resources is really good at reaching out to let us know if a process is in an error status, so we can take a look at it and fix it. They have no issue with jumping on a call and helping us out with other vendors that have connections into the core.”
Jonathan Campos
IT Support Engineer