Enables both Orbipay Payments Hub and EBPP (Loan Payments) for a real-time member experience
Background
Veridian Credit Union was founded in 1934 as John Deere Community Credit Union. They expanded to become a community credit union in 1986. They are a non-profit financial cooperative owned by members and governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. With $7B in assets and 320,000 members, Veridian serves all 50 states digitally, with over 30 branches in Iowa and Nebraska, and plans to expand into the Minnesota market.
Striving for Innovation
Veridian wanted to be able to offer real-time posting of payments to their loan pay experience. In addition, their business clients were interested in real-time payments to be able to better serve their customers.
Veridian strives to offer a wide range of innovative payment products. They try to understand the needs of their business partners, and what they do for them trickles down to their regular membership. As a part of that strategy, Veridian chose Alacriti for both Orbipay EBPP (loan payments) and Orbipay Payments Hub (connection to real-time payments and other rails).
EBPP – Real-Time Modern Loan Payments
Veridian already had a product for loan payments but found that Alacriti’s product was better. Because of the API connection, they did not need file transfers to make sure they got the correct member information. “We decided to go with EBPP because of what it offers us—the real-time posting of payments. When our members are calling and making one-off payments, they’ll be able to post in the moment, see those funds posted instantly to their loans, and not have to wait 2-3 business days they’re normally waiting to see those funds on their loan accounts here at their credit union,” said Colin Eagan, Real-Time Payment Administrator at Veridian Credit Union.
“As for the platform itself, everything looks the same. Whether it’s the RTP® network, the FedNow® Service, or EBPP, the platform we’re working on is the same. So it’s just the ease of use over multiple platforms for multiple payments,” said Amy Faley, Manager of ACH and Faster Payments at Veridian Credit Union. “We decided to work with Alacriti over the other vendors due to speed to market. That was huge—the fact that it was something they built themselves and knew inside and out was really big to us because just about every other vendor we looked at was developed from a legacy system. We felt like what they were saying they could back up—so it was an easy decision. We wanted to get there fast, we wanted to get there efficiently, and we wanted to work with a partner that had our same values.”
Payments Hub – Real-Time Payments
Veridian’s business partners were the primary reason they looked for a real-time payment solution. They had a few different partners that they originate for on a large scale and found the need through their clients for faster payments, which drove them to look at vendors that provide this service. Their business partners actually approached Veridian because they had heard about real-time payments solutions and wanted to offer them to their clients.
Veridian wanted all their payments on one hub so everything would be in one place—including analytics. “What we found when we were vetting out service providers for the real-time payment service is that Alacriti was quick to market and showed many efficiencies on how to get there, and that’s really what edged them out,” said Faley.
Through Alacriti’s Orbipay Payments Hub, Veridian was able to be amongst one of the first credit unions connected to the FedNow Service. Alacriti and Veridian were both pilot participants in the FedNow program, which involved attending meetings and joint sessions throughout 2022. Veridian decided to implement the FedNow Service around the same time that they were looking at real-time payments with TCH. Since the two networks aren’t interoperable, they saw connecting to both networks as being the best benefit for their members.
Benefits and Use Cases
Benefits
Veridian is on the Receive side for real-time payments, and they have received quite a few real-time payment transactions, and that continues to grow. The benefits Veridian cites for being with Alacriti include the ability to have the same platform for multiple payment channels, the ease of pulling analytics, and the ability to add innovative services (even if Alacriti doesn’t already offer that specific service). An example of this is virtual account numbers. Alacriti is working on creating that service for them, but it’s not part of their standard offering.
Veridian’s members also see the benefits. They have access to innovative products and the ease to send money as fast as they want without having to think about it. “They pick a date to transfer money, and if they wanted it to be today, it’s possible. And if they’re okay with it getting there in a few days, then they can go through the regular ACH channel. But for our members, they won’t know the difference. They’ll just be making a payment, and they’ll be picking a date to send it. For our business clients, it comes down to offering a full range of services to make sure all their client’s needs are met. We want to be able to offer all of these products for these clients so they don’t have to go to different financial institutions to piece together things that their clients need,” Faley explained.
With all of the payment data in one place, reporting is much easier. “As the Real-Time Payment Administrator, I’ll be able to go in and view all these payments and have all the access to reporting in one area versus having to log into multiple different accounts. So, it’s really an all-in-one solution and something that’s been a benefit for us. The benefit for our members is they’re essentially going to receive their money faster and be able to ultimately send their money faster to where they want it to go. Today, there are people waiting multiple days for settlement to come in for various accounts, depending on where the funds are flowing in for them. So these solutions will allow our members to not only send their money faster but know that they’re sending it securely across networks so they know that their money is getting from point A to point B and the quickest way possible, which is going to benefit them and our business partners in the long run,” said Eagan.
Veridian plans on seeing a return on investment when their business partners Send and Receive on the real-time payments rail. “That’s when these payment rails will really be utilized a lot, and we’ll see those transactions flowing through, especially with our connection to their EBPP solution. The solution is going to enable our members to have payments post to their loans in the moment. They’ll see the benefit and then know Veridian as a financial institution that they can trust, one that they can go to knowing whether their payments are posted as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Eagan shared.
Use Cases
Veridian has internal use cases for using real-time payments for their mortgage funding. Rather than receiving a large check when closing on a mortgage, members can have that funded instantly to the account it needs to go to. In addition, Veridian does a lot with indirect lending, where they work with various dealerships to service loans at the credit union. Rather than sending traditional clunky checks through the mail, Veridian will be able to fund these instantly through that process. They are also doing other things that are helping on the member side, such as sending dividends to wherever members want them at various financial institutions—funding their online membership applications. It cuts down on wait time and the time spent by members after they’ve submitted a payment and wondering when it’s going to come out of one account and post on the other.
How Alacriti Stands Out
“The biggest surprise working with a vendor is when you find a company that is so responsive. We’d expect that during the testing and implementation, but even after that, now that we’re live with RTP, now that we’re live with EBPP, they are just as responsive as they were when we were testing. So to have a vendor that’s just very on top of it and very willing and able to make customizations—it’s just really surprising in how fast they always get back to us, regardless of what’s going on and regardless of how big or how small the issue is,” said Faley.
“Alacriti blew us out of the water with what they were able to do for us. Verdian doesn’t like to take a lot of payment solutions from any third party that we partner with out of the box. We asked for a lot of modifications, a lot of different things to service our use cases on our end. And Alacriti was ultimately able to provide that for us. They actually own and built their system so they’re able to make the customizations that we want on there, and ultimately gear it exactly how we wanted it to function, which is what ultimately why we decided to go with Alacriti,” added Eagan.
Alacriti integrated with Veridian’s existing core banking system. “Again, I’ll just have to tip my cap to Alacriti on that one. They did almost all of the work in getting connected to our core system. Veridian was there for support and able to answer any questions, but they did the majority of the lifting getting connected. It was a very simple process that took almost no time, and with them getting connected, and us up and running,” said Eagan.
“The biggest benefit that Veridian has received from partnering with Alacriti is being one of the first financial institutions that’s going to be connected to these networks. It’s always a race to be competitive, to have access to the newest forms of technology, the newest payment rails—the newest everything. And it moves so fast, especially in banking and in the payment world. Being able to get connected to that network outside of just what they provide for us on a technical level is just their commitment to making sure that the relationship here with Veridian is a solid relationship that’s going to continue into the future. It feels like we’ve all been together on this as one big team. So just having that experience on their team and just their attention to detail and their development and engineering team is second to none. They’re able to stand products up for us very quickly, and you can tell that they have a vast experience in this area, and it’s definitely something that has been a benefit for Veridian,” Eagan shared.
Looking Toward the Future
Veridian has been up and running with TCH’s RTP network for over a year and is among the first credit unions to connect to the FedNow Service. Veridian is also looking at moving Fedwire and Visa Direct to Alacriti so they can have multiple payments on the same platform. The goal is to have all their different payment rails run through Alacriti’s payments hub.
As a medium-sized credit union, being the first in line to connect to these rails not only puts Veridian in a better position but also their members and business clients as they move into the future. “I would absolutely recommend Alacriti to any financial institution that is looking to enter this payment space. Their support and development team are second to none. They’ll work with you and how your specific financial institution works and be able to work with any use case that you come to them with. They are very diverse in how they can operate amongst different payment rails, amongst different systems, and different cores out there. They are able to handle it all,” Eagan concluded.
