To stay on top of their game, financial firms embrace technology

"We don't need to be inundated with phone calls," Bianco says. "This allows us to go out and sell and keep growing the business."

It also enables users to obtain information more quickly than they could via a phone call, adds Bianco, who foresees potential expansion of the app to provide telemedicine services. He is working with the team at Sita on a feature that would enable authorized users to utilize the app to consult with physicians from remote locations, get common diagnoses, written prescriptions and prescription fulfillment.

Changing with the times

Keesler Federal Credit Union, a large credit union in Mississippi with 180,000 members, was working with an older Internet banking system that would not support some of the newer features that the financial services firm wanted to offer, and could not support the emerging mobile transactions capabilities that members were seeing other financial institutions starting to offer.

"When you have an online presence, a system that is three to four years old seems more like it's 20 years old," says John Williamson, the credit union's Web content manager. "Our old system was very restrictive. It had a small graphical user interface. It wasn't upgraded to stay up with the times."

Mobile apps had started moving into financial services a couple of years beforehand, and the credit union needed an Internet banking hosting system that would support those apps as well as secure Internet banking transactions. Although people within a financial institution tend not to like change, financial institution customers/members tend to love it. Williamson explains, "We live in a world where if you snooze, you lose."

The credit union chose Banno for its website design because the company uses a responsive format that enables the site to work with any device, including desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones of various sizes. Banno also ensures that all information delivered to any device meets compliance rules.

Enthusiastic reception

Banno enables Williamson to make changes to the content on the customer-facing pages and to easily roll out additional functionality. In the last few months, the credit union has added an ATM locator to help members/customers quickly find the devices.

Banno also hosts a secure, tethered log-in to Wescom Resources Group for the actual transactions. According to Williamson, the security and other facets of the transactions themselves are complex and require a provider that specializes in that part of the financial services business.

The mobile banking app has been "wildly successful," Williamson says. "It's just amazing what you can do with your phone. You can do all of your banking." The credit union has been averaging 600,000 visits a month from the mobile banking app, he adds.