Live Better by Centric CU

Our Journey to Better Banking Begins Here

• Centric FCU • Season 5 • Episode 337

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Unlock the secrets to personalized financial empowerment with Centric's game-changing online banking upgrade, "Journey to Better." 

Join us as we chat with Casey Messer, Centric's training manager, who reveals how Centric's latest features can transform your financial management. From changing preferred names to setting personalized account alerts, this upgrade is all about tailoring your banking experience to fit your unique needs. 

Casey walks us through the new account aggregation capability, which brings all your financial information together in one place, and an innovative app feature that simulates credit score changes, helping you make informed financial decisions like never before.

Discover how Centric is bolstering online security with two-factor authentication and enhanced password reset safeguards, adding layers of protection to your digital financial footprint. 

Our discussion with Casey also covers seamless in-app communication with Centric staff, making it easier than ever to resolve transaction issues. These enhancements not only simplify financial management but also aim to improve your overall experience as a member. 

Don't miss out on how these advancements can help you achieve your long-term financial goals and provide you with a personalized and secure banking journey.

Kelli Green:

Welcome to the Live Better podcast. Today we're diving into something exciting that's going to make managing your finances easier than ever Centric's new online banking upgrade Journey to Better. Join us as we dive into this two-part series. In this episode, we'll explore what this upgrade means for you, whether you're managing personal finances or even running a business. We'll talk about features that can simplify your day-to-day banking, improve security and even help you achieve your big financial goals. We'll also tackle some key questions like what tools would make online banking truly helpful for you, how can mobile banking meet your needs and what role does security play in your confidence with digital banking? Stick around as we break it all down, share tips and hear from experts about how this upgrade is set to transform your financial experience. Let's get started on your journey to better. Today we'll actually be joined with lead expert and Centric's training manager, Casey Messer. Hello, Casey, welcome to the Live Better podcast.

Casey Messer:

Hey, so glad to be here.

Kelli Green:

It's exciting and we're thrilled to bring really some new news to our members. We've marketed just a smidge to our folks for them to know what's up ahead.

Kelli Green:

But before we jump into our main topic, will you just tell our listeners a little bit about what you do here at Centric, and then a few things about you personally.

Casey Messer:

So at Centric, I'm the training manager. I do a little bit of operations, but primarily help develop our staff and prepare them to serve our members. So a little bit about me personally. I'm married. I have two babies. My husband works for Entergy and I have a little boy in kindergarten and a little girl who's four and she'll be starting preschool soon.

Casey Messer:

So a little bit about us.

Kelli Green:

Wow, that they're that age now. So well-rounded. Been here, you know you've worked in several different departments here at the credit union, so you have really been with us through a lot of, I say, the evolution of Centric essentially, and I would think you would agree that this project that we're working on right now is probably one of the best upgrades that we're providing to our members.

Casey Messer:

For sure, I definitely see that and I see that our members are going to be so excited about that change.

Kelli Green:

Well, cool, let's dive in and talk about these things. Our members will continue to hear us talk about Journey to Better and some of the things I just really want to think about.

Kelli Green:

You know, from your perspective, the new online banking platform really promises increased personalization. That's something that we wanted,

Casey Messer:

yeah

Kelli Green:

So what tools or features would you really think that would make banking experience feel like it's truly tailored to you?

Casey Messer:

Well, there's a lot of things. I mean as simple as you can change your preferred name. If you have a first name and you go by your middle name, you can change that in our mobile app and when we talk to you as a Centric staff, we can address you by that, so it can be very personalized.

Casey Messer:

Things like alerts I'm very excited that you can really drill down by account. So checking versus savings, different alerts. You can set up balance alerts, you can set up just transaction things. So, I think, just each person's different. You might care about something a little bit different than I want to see, and so that, to me, is very personalized, whereas right now maybe it's just a global setting and you can alert yourself, but it looks a little bit different from person to person.

Kelli Green:

So when you think about some members maybe have accounts also at Centric, but maybe they also have accounts at other financial institutions, can they link those accounts?

Casey Messer:

Yeah, that's one of the favorites I have that's coming up. So account aggregation just being able to see your financial journey as a whole, really, so if you have other savings accounts or things elsewhere, you can link those and I just think that, as an enhancement, that's one of the biggest things that you can do.

Kelli Green:

And then also in the personalization, are there any tools that are coming up that will be available to our members where they might be able to see their credit score and how maybe lending or different decisions that they've made to their finances how that impacts their credit score?

Casey Messer:

Yeah, so from a personal financial management standpoint, big things are coming. So you can see your credit report, you can see your score and you can see it within a matter of seconds when opening up your app. So not only seeing the score and viewing your report, but then also there's tools and things that are in place that are going to help you understand how to improve it.

Casey Messer:

So if you're, you know, walking through your credit journey and maybe you've spoken with someone or maybe you haven't, maybe you have a goal in mind you can see specifically what's happening with your financial journey. So there's budgets and things that we can talk about. That also. I think that can really help you map out what that journey looks like. I love it. I think it's going to be awesome, especially when we think about financial education or financial wellness.

Kelli Green:

To me, that is the crux of everything. That is one of the things that we talk about a lot of times. We may say no for a member to a loan or what have you, because it's maybe not in the best position for them. It might help them out right now to give them this, whatever they may need, but as far as considering that from a long-term goal, it's just not beneficial. And having tools like this at their fingertips where they can log in real time, see how you know when they're making a payment how does it impact their score, you know or even also, too, to say, hey, if you continue to make these timely payments, here's your overall goal. That's really important and something we've never been able to offer to our members.

Casey Messer:

One thing that you just mentioned talking about maybe getting a new loan. One of the features in our app will actually simulate what will happen to your credit if you add this loan, so you can put in all the specific details of what you're interested in doing. Maybe it's a personal loan that you need. What's going to happen to my score when I do this? So I think that's an enhancement that we haven't had before

Kelli Green:

And also thinking about that is if you are thinking about making another purchase, how do you budget for that?

Kelli Green:

So do we have any tools that might be coming down the pike we can see for a budgeting standpoint?

Casey Messer:

Yes, so we're going to have insights and spending habits that are individual to you. There's going to be a way to tag transactions so you can go in and say, hey, this is for groceries, this is a bill. However, you want to organize that and you can set up budgets specific to that. You can also set up goals. So if you have a goal in mind and you know you need to organize that budget to help you attain that goal, you can do that based on those spending habits and those insights that our new app's gonna provide.

Kelli Green:

That's gonna be great! And just thinking about, or example, if you have household expenses and you say you have maybe utilities that go underneath that, or you have your mortgage or whatever, you have a budget and it will alert you hey, you're 50% to that goal, you know, or you've spent 100% of this goal this month. It helps you stay on track and it even alerts you when you've hit those savings goals and identifies if there is a savings opportunity. That's huge.

Casey Messer:

Yeah, that's really big.

Kelli Green:

I love it. I think that's great.

Kelli Green:

Personalization, I think, is critical for us, especially. The more that we can actually offer our members, I think, the better we are as an individual, but also even as a community, and that makes us make smarter choices, and in turn, we can share that too with our kids, or even if we don't have children, it might even be someone that we can share, that we may know, because once we feel more confident about our expenses, that's going to show in many different areas of our lives.

Casey Messer:

That's right.

Kelli Green:

So kind of take us through too, so personalization, we know, is so important to us. Something that I think that's at the top of our mind, especially when you're managing your finances, is really security,

Casey Messer:

Yeah

Kelli Green:

And so we talk about security as always being a priority with digital banking. What measures would you give your you know greater confidence in managing your finances online?

Casey Messer:

There's a couple of things. One of the things and we have this now, but the two-factor authentication, so you know you can use your password and we also can do face ID, but then you know you can receive a text message to verify that it's you. One of the things that I love that's coming up. It's another I call it a safeguard. But if you go to reset your own password so self-serve right, you forgot it, whatever has happened. If you go to do that from your cell phone and you try and copy that link or send that over to someone else, it's not going to allow you to do that and so you've got to do that from the same device, which I think is just an added. It's a cherry on top, if you will, for the security world. This day, we know we have so many breaches and things that you know maybe you've shared it, your password, and you need to reset and just kind of get yourself back on track with that. I think that that's a great way to make sure you know it's you and we know that everything is safe.

Kelli Green:

Absolutely.

Kelli Green:

Even talking about that security standpoint too, if members want to reach out to us and say they've got a question about a transaction that's on their account, it could be from a fraudulent transaction or it could be like oh my goodness, I forgot that I had this transaction. Take us through if as a member, I experienced something like that. Would you share with me what would that look like for the member?

Casey Messer:

So we do get a lot of questions about fraud and one of the ways right now to do that is just to reach out to the credit union.

Casey Messer:

Well, with our new app, one of the ways that you can reach out to the credit union is inside of the app. It says you're already authenticated. I know I'm talking to Kelli. Kelli has a question. You can click on the transaction that's in question and begin a conversation with a Centric staff member right from your mobile app, so you don't have to go outside and text us or call us. You can, of course, we're there, but that's just one way to keep it right there where you're already at.

Kelli Green:

That's right. So it's literally like you notice within your app. You're just looking at your transactions and you say wait a second, I don't recognize this. You can click on that particular transaction and you can request that someone at Centric evaluate that transaction.

Casey Messer:

That's right. Yeah.

Kelli Green:

That easy.

Casey Messer:

You can attach a receipt If you, you know. You say, hey, wait, this was me, this one's not. I have questions. You can get into all the specifics of it right there.

Kelli Green:

So there's no longer we have to send in all this information or come in face to face. We can do that, yeah, but if we want to transact, we can literally do it right there from our phone.

Casey Messer:

There are so many enhanced workflows, I think that are going to be just more efficient. I think, from the member standpoint, but then also from the staffing side, we want to help you as quickly as we can, and if we already have that information, why do we need to ask you again?

Kelli Green:

That's right, so when we call, if I, as a member here at Centric, it's important that whenever I call, I want you to know me, you know and there's other people too that there's different folks that are using AI where they're identifying members and so forth, and it's so critical that we have an extra layer of security but to say, okay, here's the way in which that we are identifying who you are, you know, and that is something that the member sets up, and and so I really love this. To me, it makes me feel safe as a not only as an employee here at Centric, but, most importantly, as as a member. And how is this going to impact us financially? You know that that is really important to me.

Kelli Green:

So, excuse me, as we kind of talk about some different things. You know, there's always going to be some pain points and there's probably some frustrations that people have right now with change or even frustrations that they may have experienced with their current provider. Can you maybe talk through ways in which we're working through those, after those frustrations that have been identified through this Journey to Better? How can we make those improvements?

Casey Messer:

So I think one of the pain points and this is just something that stood out to me I think there's different ways you can answer this question but one of the pain points to me is, just again, we talk about your financial management. How do you manage, how do you organize, how do you work with? So I think being able to make your experience what you want, it is important.

Casey Messer:

So one of the roadblocks I think we've we faced in the past is okay, maybe I am joint on a lot of accounts, or maybe I had access to a lot of accounts because of my role at a business, or whatever the situation is. How how can I manage that? And they're really it's either you have it or you don't. So there are different ways now in the new app that you're going to be able to say okay, I want to save, I don't want to see it, or I'm on this account but I don't need to have access to it in the mobile banking, and so I think that's one of the ways and the pain points that we've had in the past that we're going to be able to move forward with.

Kelli Green:

I love it, I think that's great.

Kelli Green:

So mobile banking is really becoming more central to everyday financial activities. I mean, I probably check my account a couple of times a week. I'm notified to you, know whenever a transaction happens. You know you can set those limitations, but kind of what specific mobile features are most important to you in this new system?

Casey Messer:

So I think that just being able to, like you just mentioned, being able to see everything in real time we can see that now, right, but just having a good idea of what's happening. So going back to the spending habits and just the credit simulator, but then also the credit report, so you know in real time what's happening at all times. So, whereas maybe before you set a reminder on your calendar to go check these things or you have a certain time where you really dive into this, it's all right there.

Casey Messer:

One of the things too, some of the workflows that I think take a little bit more time right now are going to be easier. So maybe I'm traveling, one of the things I forget every time is to go set a travel notice

Kelli Green:

Right

Casey Messer:

To say, hey, don't block my card. That's important to me, right? I need that, so you can do that right from your app. You don't have to call or remember to call, and then, if it's after hours, you can do that when it's convenient for you. So things like that are really going to improve the way that we're banking.

Kelli Green:

I agree. I think that is absolutely great. The thing I love about it so much, too, is that it's you literally just set it up the way you want to see it. And another thing that's really important to me you know, a lot of times if we're online and we see different ads and things of that nature, you know it may not necessarily be personalized to you, or it could be personalized to you. What I think is really important is that, through this technology that we have, we'll be able to really pinpoint and say, casey, we see that you could actually be saving money doing this or you're in this particular product. Here's something have you thought about this? It may save you money or help you in the future, and that's what I love just really from a marketing standpoint. I think that's so important that we know our members well enough to say hey, we owe it to our members, as their credit union of choice, to say this is how we could be saving you money. Here's some things that we could be doing for you that maybe we have been sharing in a more of a blanketed part of communication, but this is something that will be specific to our each and every member, and I think that it's really hard to come by when you're really comparing us to other financial institutions.

Casey Messer:

Yeah, you're right.

Kelli Green:

I love it. Well, Casey, this has been great from you, know, just really thinking about from a member perspective.

Kelli Green:

As I mentioned, you know this is a two-part series. We'll be discussing more so one for our members who maybe don't have a business account, but we certainly want you know everyone to think about too, if you are a business owner or you're thinking about becoming a business owner. We have more on that next month that's coming up, so we really invite you to to listen in, but, as we're wrapping up, is there anything else in addition, maybe, that you wanted to share? To our listeners,

Casey Messer:

Oh, I would just say, get, get ready. This is a very exciting time, you know. We are going to share as much information as we can ahead of time to get you prepared for this.

Casey Messer:

I know it's a change and with change, sometimes that you know you can, I fear I think fear is the word there but just really knowing that we're doing this to make it better and we want to help you Live Better and give you all the tools that you need to manage your finances.

Kelli Green:

Yeah, and call us, contact us, if there's ever any issue, a hiccup. There will be a, you know, a period of time where there might be some downtime. You know that our members may experience where there's. They're not. They won't necessarily be able to see their account from their mobile app, but they're welcome to call in and can speak with us and we can talk with them about that and walk them through it. It's just a. You think about it like this. You know it's just a short amount of time for a really awesome long-term benefit, so we just have to keep that in mind.

Kelli Green:

Well, thank you, Casey, so much for joining us in our two-part series of Journey to Better.

Kelli Green:

Thank you for listening to our podcast and tune back in next month for another episode of the Live Better Podcast with Centric. Don't forget to subscribe to your favorite platform and to ensure you never miss out on helpful tips, like us on Facebook at Centric Federal Credit Union and find us at MyCentric on Instagram, pinterest, tiktok and YouTube. You can find information about today's topic, our monthly blog and more at mycentricorg. Centric is federally insured by the NCUA.