Lending in the age of social distancing

How to Keep Lending High-Touch in a High-Tech World

By Joseariel Gomez, CEO of Shastic

Most financial institutions are racing to go digital, and they’re making significant investments in new digital infrastructure to get there. However, these institutions are now faced with the challenge of going digital without losing personal relationships with customers. For community banks, which many customers choose precisely because of personalized service, going digital runs the risk of transforming their services into a commodity in which the only differentiators are interest rates. Investing in digital personal touch-points can be a key competitive advantage for these community banks.

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Priority One Integrated SMS for Verification and Security

Recently, Shastic and Priority One collaborated to create a technology solution for the credit union’s digital platform.

With the addition of SMS, Priority One added an innovative security process for the verification of the member’s identity. This allowed the credit union to perform specific tasks over the phone, such as balance inquiries, transferring funds and making loan payments.

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Banks and Credit Unions Are Losing to Fintech

Both banks and credit unions continue to lose market share to digital lending platforms that offer better user experience and more personalization. 
Fintech startups issued 38% of all US personal loans in 2018, while banks provided 28% and credit unions accounted for 21%, according to TransUnion. This is a significant change from 2013, when fintech startups issued only 5% of US personal loans, banks issued 40%, and credits unions 31%.

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Shastic Partners with MeridianLink to Leverage SMS in the Application

MeridianLink is the largest loan origination system in the United States, providing the nation’s first multi-channel loan organization platform

Recently, MeridianLink announced a partnership with Shastic to deliver an innovative SMS and real-time tracking integration inside all of their applications. Before this, financial institutions did not have a way to communicate with their customers as they moved through the application process.

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How Credit Unions Verify Each Member’s Identification Digitally

Most credit unions currently have a process in place to verify each member through the call center. The verification of the member’s identity allows the credit union to perform specific tasks over the phone, such as balance inquiries, transferring funds and making loan payments.

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Two-Way Text Messaging for Credit Union Communication

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One challenge that credit unions face today is the need to keep themselves relevant. Usually, this involves making a face for themselves on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but this alone is not key to keeping technologically viable. The key, it seems, is adopting a technological advancement that has been around for decades and yet has been primarily underutilized by companies. The technology? Two-way text messaging.

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Credit Union Digital Strategies Aren’t “Set and Forget”

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Anyone involved in a technology field can tell you business technology is growing rapidly. What this means for companies is that they must update their technology in order to remain viable in their field of competition. “Set and forget” technologies, or technologies that are not designed to meet the constantly shifting expectations of modern technology, pose problems to potential company growth. In many cases, set and forget technologies can put companies years behind and create cost burdens to businesses. 

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CUTimes story: Why Credit union members love text message interactions

Last week, the CreditUnionTimes featured a story about why three of Shastic’s credit union partners are integrating text messaging into their operations strategy.

This CUTimes article dives into how credit unions are using SMS text to connect to the systems they already use, including account opening, loan origination, and customer relationship management systems.

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Park Community on pace for 2044% ROI from loan growth

Credit union uses text messaging platform to give members actionable loan app information.

In 2018, Park Community was evaluating messaging communication services to create a better experience for their members. The credit union needed a text messaging platform that could accurately capture loan prospects in real-time and help guide them through the digital application journey when applicants entered Park’s online loan applications.

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Millennial Text Messaging Statistics

Think that adults age 40 and over are your biggest worry? Think again. When it comes to servicing the largest group of potential customers, this role goes to the Millennial population and is closely followed by Generation Z. For this specific audience, the digital user experience takes a much higher priority.

While in-person or over-the-phone interactions may have been the preferred method in the past, the next generation of banking customers are challenging this idea, and backing it up with surprising statistics. 

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Benefits of Workflow Automation

With many people concerned about the prospect of “robots” taking their jobs, the idea of an automated workplace just might seem like one step closer to a dystopian reality. But for those in workforces where the majority of the work can be completed on an employee’s own time and without direct supervision from a manager, workflow automation can be a blessing. Not only does it place more trust in your employees and cause them to focus efforts on more meaningful tasks, but it can also increase the level of satisfaction held by your customers.

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Best Practice for Complying with SMS Regulation

Just a few years ago, the FCC determined text messaging does indeed fall under the TCPA umbrella. For some companies, this may have come as a surprise — particularly for Jiffy Lube with their now-famous SMS mishap.

But no need to get discouraged or abandon the idea of text messaging for your financial organization altogether. There are a few easy ways to make sure your company complies with the TCPA and never misses a beat.

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Receiving Banking Documents Just Got Easy

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Over the last year, the Elle text messaging platform continues to advance with new benefits and features the banking industry. Today, we are highlighting on such addition that our banking partners have been taking advantage of recently – collecting loan and new account documentation by text messaging.

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Key Reasons SMS Marketing is Essential

Even before the dawn of text-based everything, David Wachs and other marketers knew that SMS-based marketing was the future of marketing. The evidence for SMS-based marketing was what prompted Wachs to write this article, which details the five most important things, in his opinion, to utilizing this underrated marketing option.

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Mobile SMS Secrets: Strategies for Success

If you have a mobile device, chances are you’ve probably gotten an unwanted text or SMS before. They are unavoidable, ranging from unsolicited advertising to ‘special’ marketing promotions. In the end, it makes you ask how your number was made available to this person. Even worse, when customers find out a company they are affiliated with is doing this, a common knee-jerk reaction is to stop being a customer altogether.

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Make Mobile Messaging Part of Your Communications Plan

In an article by Tim Fujita-Yuhas of The Financial Brand, the author highlights some staggering statistics concerning text message usage by mobile banking customers. For example, “64% of millennials prefer text messages to voice for customer service.” The Financial Brand also notes how “77% of millennials look favorably on companies that offer text messaging communications.”

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SMS Marketing Case Study: Avoid Jiffy Lube’s Costly Mistake

In 2012, cell-phone usage was beginning to peak and was quickly becoming one of the most important tools for marketing. Text messaging, especially, was showcasing its versatility and abundance. Unfortunately for some companies, such as Jiffy Lube, little research was done into opt-in text messaging solutions before deploying to their customer base. This article highlights exactly what can happen if precautions are not taken to respect customer wishes regarding opt-in texting.

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FCC Rules & Regulations on Text Messaging: Understanding TCPA

Text messaging functionality is quickly being adopted by financial institutions seeking to better serve their customers. Once deployed, these leading businesses see it as an invaluable communication tool. However, it is important to understand the do’s and don’t when it comes to text messaging regulation.

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Why Poor Customer Service Costs Billions and How to Fix it

Shep Hyken of Forbes points out several ‘frightening statistics’ in the world of customer service — something that all leading businesses must master at one point or another. In his piece, Hyken’s focuses less on the impact of customer retention and more on the monetary impact of poor customer service.

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How Banks & Credit Unions are Using Text Messaging

When it comes to mediums or channels of communication, text messaging is the most underutilized ways of gathering account information from customers, selling them on new products, and ultimately catering to their needs. In recent studies, it is shown that within the first 3 minutes of receiving a text message, 98% of all text messages are read. This statistic alone uncovers hw powerful text messaging can be for banks and credit unions, alike.

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Push Vs. Pull :  Which Text Messaging Service Benefits Banking Customers Most?

You get a text and you don’t really think about the processes it takes to get that message from sender to receiver.

However, financial institutions must think about this when implementing their own text banking options. Here’s a look into the various text messaging offerings for financial institutions and how each motivates different type of customers.

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Five Benefits When Adding Messaging to Your Banking Strategy

Digital transformation is a hot topic for leading financial institutions today. Luckily, most banks and credit unions are overcoming the pressure to adapt or become extinct. Rather, these banking institutions are steadily transforming into a digital era, with many now adding messaging to their omnichannel communication strategies.

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As Communication Changes, Banking Call Centers Turn to Text

Text messaging is no longer considered a complicated, high-tech decision for banks and credit unions. Statistics show that text message for banking is critical to efficiently service customers in today’s world. Furthermore, a majority of financial institutions see text message as a gateway to provide consumers with a better digital experience.

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How Educators Credit Union Achieved a 68% Completion rate from Loan Applicants

A loan applicant prospect starts to fill out a loan application online. This applicant comes to a section that confuses them and stops completing the application. They decide to come back to the loan application tomorrow when they can get help. However, the applicant forgets about it and the financial institution never follows up with this prospect. Does this sound familiar?

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How the World is Communicating and Why Banks and Credit Unions Should Pay Attention

Susan is a CMO at a Washington-based financial institution. She loves her team’s outreach strategy, but deep down she knew something wasn’t right. Her promotional emails were ignored, outbound calls went unanswered, and overall engagement was low. She didn’t know why this was happening, but knew that she had to make a change.

If you work at a bank or credit union, you may have noticed there’s a fundamental shift in how communication is delivered and received, and this change is happening at unprecedented speeds. 

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Why Email and Social Media Campaigns Fall Short

A common goal for marketing professionals at credit unions is getting the right content to the right audience at the right time. So, you put extra effort into your strategy. You categorize and target your member audience to specific financial products or promotions. You make your email and social media posts engaging. You offer fun and interactive sweepstakes.

However, despite this effort, you notice your members are not responding at the same rate as they have in the past.

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Why You Must Start Designing Your Conversational Banking Strategy Now

Digital transformation tears through the financial services industry like a whirlwind. It is often so dizzying that it can seem like the progress of technology has a mind of its own. It can be forgotten that all of the disruption and change exists for one reason — to better service customers demanding digital and mobile engagement on their terms. Revolutionizing the way Banks or Credit Unions engage with customers and members is about making it easy for them to stay loyal. Nothing pushes people away from a company faster than receiving a lower level of service than what they have come to expect.

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Why Conversational Messaging is a No-Brainer

Financial institutions are experiencing an evolution in terms of how they reach consumers across new mediums of communication. Many have followed the example of fintech companies like Paypal, Marcus, and Credit Karma by offering conversational banking for their customers. These leading fintech firms are creating new value and improved experiences with virtual agents and responsive text messaging.

The building out of these products demonstrates an growing demand for conversational messaging functionality. Here are a few key attributes driving this progress:

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Why Members Don’t Answer Your Calls

Despite the proven wins for financial institutions, not all credit unions are quick to adopt more efficient communication technology. Credit unions are often slower to offer their members 1-on-1 text messaging services or push SMS messaging even though it is the way members want to communicate.

Here are a few reason why credit unions should step it up when it comes to diversifying their digital conversational channels:

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7 Strategies for Credit Unions to Grow Text Message Opt-in Consent

The biggest concern credit unions have with text messaging is opt-in consent. All credit unions must obtain “prior written consent” from members before sending text message communication to meet FCC/TCPA compliance. So how can you automatically convert new applicants into lifelong text message recipients?

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Five Credit Unions Sign with Shastic’s Text Messaging Platform in January to Enhance Lending and Operations

Shastic has signed on five new customers in the first month of 2018. The recent growth follows the company’s early launch of Elle, a conversational text messaging platform built for credit unions. Elle is an expansion of their automation services to deliver efficient, real-time message communication between credit unions and their members.

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Is Email Dead?

Arguably the most prefered way to communicate digitally in the early 2000’s, email has begun to fade from popularity as more efficient methods are emerging. The rise of email-based spam or unsolicited commercial emails could be a major factor. Kaspersky Labs report states email makes up 70% of all emails sent, while a 2014 email metric report found the portion of spam email was around 90% of emails sent. Or, perhaps it is due to the growing number of message-based applications available offering a real-time conversational platform to connect organizations with consumers.

Here are some key reasons why email is being replaced by a new wave of business tools:

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