Vendor Case Studies

Corillian

Credit Union Background: 
In 1935, a small group of employees from The Boeing Company got together and developed the Fellowship Credit Union. The organization - renamed Boeing Employees' Credit Union (BECU) in 1949 - was founded to provide members with low-interest rate loans, high dividends on their deposits and exceptional member value. Today, with assets of more than $6.3 billion, Tukwila, Washington-based BECU is the largest financial cooperative in the state and one of the top five credit unions in the nation, serving more than 450,000 members worldwide.

Challenge:
BECU has always prided itself on providing its members with the highest possible value, along with trusted service. BECU was one of the first credit unions to deliver online access to its members and experienced tremendous growth in the adoption of online banking among its member base. This growth resulted in BECU outgrowing its first generation online banking platform. So, in late 2001, in keeping with the organization’s commitment to giving members access to the most innovative online banking solutions, BECU began a search to replace its online banking platform. BECU was looking for a more robust system that provided an open architecture and seamlessly integrated with its host and other third-party systems. The credit union also wanted a feature-rich system that was flexible and able to grow with its expanding member base. 

Solution: 
BECU conducted an extensive search of online banking providers in the industry. After careful review of different technologies and client references, BECU selected Corillian and the Voyager Platform as its partner for its next generation online banking service because of Corillian’s reputation in the industry as an innovator and trustworthy partner, as well as the scalability and interoperability of the company’s solutions. 

“We were looking for a solution that could expand our services and grow with our increasing member base,” said Butch Leonardson, CIO at BECU. “With Corillian and the Voyager platform, we are significantly improving the functionality that we can provide to our members, with new services such as online personalization capabilities. Voyager also provides us with the needed scalability as our online member base grows.” 

In late 2002, BECU implemented the Corillian Voyager Platform and Corillian Consumer Banking applications as its foundation for its online banking services. Through Corillian Consumer Banking, BECU provided its members with faster and more reliable access to their financial accounts, enabling them to manage their finances online in a more efficient manner. Members now had real-time access to all of their accounts to pay bills, transfer funds or reconcile their accounts via an online check register. 

"The conversion to the Corillian Voyager platform was an important project for BECU, and we met our goals for the implementation of this new platform," Leonardson said. "We asked our staff to provide their thoughts on the new system and the most frequently used descriptions were 'fast,' 'stable,' 'reliable,' 'flexible' and 'easily interfaces with other products.”

In addition to replacing its online banking system, BECU was also in the process of replacing six other systems at the credit union at the same time – a project that many financial institutions would omit. However, BECU had a core middleware system that would seamlessly join all of these systems together. qbt’s MultiPoint Integrator Platform (which was later acquired by Corillian) served as the hub of a wagon-wheel approach message broker that all of the applications communicated through. MultiPoint Integrator performed flawlessly during the systems’ conversions and the project received accolades from industry analysts for its success. 

Corillian Consumer Banking has enabled BECU to give its members unparalleled access to an online banking interface that is easy to navigate, giving users the ability to handle everything from simple account review to sophisticated payment and transfer transactions. When BECU’s small business members began requesting enhanced services focused on the unique needs of small businesses, BECU looked at Corillian’s Small Business Banking solution. 

"Our members were asking for online business banking services and we felt that Corillian was the right partner to help us deliver innovative services to meet these demands and enhance our member relationships," said Arnie Gunderson, Director of Small Business Services at BECU. "We looked at many different technologies and Corillian Small Business banking was the best solution for our member’s needs. Corillian's small business banking experience with other leading financial institutions and industry-leading functionality was a key factor in our decision. Also, leveraging a common platform across our consumer and small business member base provides us with significant advantages, cost savings and synergies as we deliver these services to our members."

Many of BECU’s small business members were already leveraging Corillian’s Consumer Banking solution; therefore, transitioning them to the new Corillian Small Business Banking solution was seamless, as the solutions share the same look and feel. BECU's small business banking members now have real-time access to a range of financial services over the Internet including tiered authority and balance and transaction reporting. In addition, members will have full-synch integration with QuickBooks and advanced payments capabilities such as ACH, stop payments, payroll and tax payments in the next phase of the roll out.

“We couldn’t be happier with our decision to go with Corillian’s Consumer and Small Business Banking solutions. These solutions are scalable to grow with our organization and enable us to offer our members industry-leading and innovative online banking services – for both their personal and small business needs,” said Kyle Welsh, BECU Director of Technology Services. 

Securing Online Success – A New Challenge: 
With the proliferation of online fraud, the industry was reporting that online banking users were becoming more apprehensive about using the online channel and new online banking users were dwindling. BECU knew the value of the online channel and the credit union wanted to ensure that it was proactive in protecting its members’ online accounts, while still providing a great online banking experience.

Solution: 
For this, BECU turned to Corillian’s Fraud Detection System. This system provides companies with an innovative way to proactively address online fraud using a technique called Preemptive Forensics™. Unlike other available anti-phishing techniques that wait to work until a phishing attack is launched, the Corillian Fraud Detection System provides financial institutions with a way to identify phishing behaviors before they turn into attacks on a financial institution and its customers. 

“I like this system because it’s more proactive than reactive,” said Ken Kinloch, BECU’s Information Protection Officer. “It fits in with our whole concept of using industry best practices and deep defense. We use other logging systems too, but they are mostly from the system level, such as our Web service and operating system logs. This new fraud detection system fits in very nicely with that and gives us a more complete picture. It’s also a very unique solution. I haven’t seen anything like it anywhere else.”

BECU is a technologically advanced organization that has consistently implemented strategies to better serve its members - 2007 will be no exception. The organization is already planning to further build upon its anti-fraud arsenal with the integration of Corillian’s Intelligent Authentication solution. 

Intelligent Authentication uses a patent-pending, multilayered approach to authenticate online banking users. The solution improves upon the traditional authentication mechanism of a user name and password; however, it is just as simple and is completely transparent to the end user. Unlike other authentication solutions, Intelligent Authentication can reread signatures to authorize specific transaction types; can detect session hijacking and man-in-the-middle attacks; and eliminates the need for additional hardware or software, to register the PC or to use tracking cookies.

Further, Intelligent Authentication helps BECU comply with the recent FFIEC guidance calling for a stronger method of authentication and allows for future expansion of additional layers of authentication solutions. 

“Overall, Corillian’s innovative, scalable online banking and security solutions have directly contributed to the growth of our member base,” added Welsh. “More than half of our members actively use online banking. With Corillian’s robust functionality and good performance standards, we definitely recommend this channel to our membership.”