Vendor Case Studies

Jwaala

One would be hard pressed to find a credit union with as high tech of a membership base as Amplify Federal Credit Union (AMPLIFY). That is because the credit union was founded by IBM Texas employees. Starting with just $600 in a shoebox in 1967, they have grown the credit union into a $400M credit union that offers state-of-the-art services to their 38,000+ members. Because the online banking channel plays such a key role in the financial lives of these busy professionals, AMPLIFY has developed an impressive suite of features that they offer their Internet bankers. One new service in particular has drawn praise from AMPLIFY’s members: MoneyTracker.

Developed in conjunction with business partner Jwaala Inc, MoneyTracker is a sophisticated Web-based financial tool. Karen Pollack, Vice President of Operations for the Austin, Texas-based credit union, says that “we designed MoneyTracker to be extremely easy to use and member friendly. It is free and doesn’t require any registration – it is simply an integrated part of our online banking program.” Unlike well known personal financial management programs such as Intuit’s Quicken or Microsoft Money, MoneyTracker doesn’t require complicated downloads or troublesome software installations because it is completely Web-based.

In action, AMPLIFY members have access to comprehensive budgeting and reporting tools. There are pre-set categories to help them manage their finances, along with simple ways to add notes in various places to help track payments. Pollack notes that “we have an excellent response from our members that are using MoneyTracker. Many like alerting features that they can customize by certain actions that are important to them and then receive alerts via email, RSS, cell phone, etc.” She adds that “the powerful search capabilities that we have built into the product have also proven popular with our online bankers.”

In true credit union spirit, AMPLIFY and Jwaala are looking to provide other credit unions across the country with the ability to deploy MoneyTracker at a very reasonable rate. According to Pollack, MoneyTracker is “core system and online banking agnostic.” That is because it use open standards such as OFX and XML to pull data from a credit union’s data processing system, as well as from outside sources. “It can pull in data from a wide variety of locations,” explains Pollack. Jwaala is also targeting credit union Marketing Departments with their built-in one-to-one, real time marketing features. Google-like advertisements can be displayed that are directly tied to what the member is currently doing, e.g., when a member is making a mortgage payment to an outside company, MoneyTracker can display the credit union’s current mortgage or home equity loan rates.

With MoneyTracker’s extensive feature set, intuitive interface, affordable price tag, and unique marketing capabilities, it should appeal to many credit unions looking to expand their online banking programs beyond basic functionality and bill payment. Pollack concludes that “we built MoneyTracker as an additional online service for our members and it has been very well received. We are convinced that many other credit unions will benefit from implementing it for their members.”