Torrance Community Credit Union

Torrance Community Credit Union (TCCU) was founded in 1958 to serve the employees of the City of Torrance, CA. From a humble beginning with just a handful of members and $15,000 in assets, TCCU has added numerous SEGs, and various community charters, that have seen their membership grow to over 6500 members with assets of nearly $100 million. All along the way the credit union has never lost sight of why they exist: to provide stellar service to their members. This is the main reason that they have chosen to partner with another organization that was founded with one main objective – service: core data processor Innovative Technology, Inc., also known as INTECH.

Steve Stoppel, CEO of Torrance Community Credit Union, is well qualified when it comes to evaluating core systems because he been in the financial services industry since 1987 and been CEO of the credit union since 2003. Stoppel recalls inheriting “an outdated and inadequate data processing system that was cumbersome to work with for both our front office and back employees.” Stoppel was familiar with INTECH from using their system at a previous credit union and knew that INTECH offered one of the nation’s top software platforms, Fiserv Spectrum, and that “their customer service goes above and beyond what the majority of vendors offer.” Yet, the credit union’s senior managers took their time and performed extensive due diligence on a handful of core processors, but in the end INTECH won because in Stoppel’s words “they are one of the very few vendors that I consider to be a true partner.”

With no in-house IT staff whatsoever, TCCU was truly relying on INTECH at every step of the way to get them painlessly converted to the new Fiserv system running in INTECH’s secure Omaha-based data center. According to Stoppel, “INTECH really stepped up to help us at every step of the way during the conversion. Their attitude was ‘do whatever it takes’ to get us up and running smoothly.” After extensive staff training and one week of on-site assistance from INTECH, the new system went live in 2004. Stoppel describes the employees’ reaction to the new system: “They just love it!”

While INTECH specializes in helping credit unions under $250M in assets with their processing needs, they do not employ a ‘one size fits all’ approach. In fact, it is just the opposite – they pride themselves on setting up each system exactly how each client wants it to be in order to meet their needs. INTECH’s experienced developers are able to easily accomplish customized solutions through the use of the powerful Fiserv Spectrum PathWays development toolkit. Torrance Community Credit Union has taken advantage of these additional INTECH packages in the forms of online banking and mobile banking. Stoppel confirms that “our members really like these convenient channels and they are very affordable for us to deploy and maintain. Their mutual authentication solution is especially appealing – while many credit unions pay tens of thousands of dollars for two factor authentication software, we pay just a fraction of that cost for a very good system from INTECH.”

Even as billion dollar-plus financial institutions struggle to roll out basic RDC (remote deposit capture) programs, not only does TCCU have a home-based RDC offering, but they also offer mobile RDC via the highly popular iPhone.  Through a partnership with INTECH and EasCorp, TCCU is one of only handful of credit unions in the world to offer mobile RDC. Stoppel says their partnership with INTECH and EasCorp “has been great. Everyone worked together and we were able to rollout our iPhone app to our members at a very low cost and in less than thirty days.” However, this latest project does not surprise Stoppel in any way, since he characterizes INTECH’s pricing in general as “simply amazing.”

One way that INTECH stays on top of the latest needs and wishes of their dozens of credit union partners is via their annual User Conference. Stoppel describes these events “as excellent brainstorming sessions where INTECH’s senior managers and developers really pay attention to us. They compile the top five ‘wish list’ items and get to work on them right away – INTECH is very good at both listening and following up!” Stoppel concludes that “INTECH works hard to keep us happy. Their primary focus is making sure that we get the most benefit out of all of their modules. I couldn’t recommend them any more highly.”