(Archive) GOLD 15.1 July 2015

July 12, 2105

Member Facing/Lending

Enhancements to the Online and Mobile Loan Application

As described in the sections below, several enhancements were made to the online and mobile loan application with this release that include changes to the infrastructure, look, and controls for community property states.  This also included the collection of rent into the household database.  

This is just the first phase of more to come which includes a rewrite of how household information that is entered in a loan application is stored in CU*BASE.  Watch for future enhancements in the upcoming year.

  • Our thanks to Fox Community Credit Union for their assistance with this phase of the update.

User-Friendly Language in the Loan App and Features Designed to Help You Collect More Data

Many of the changes with this release make it easier for your member to apply online.

  • On the “About Your Loan” screen the label “MSRP” (between “Vehicle description” and “Model year”) will now read “Price or current value.” Additionally a message will appear under the “Estimated Amount” explaining that this is just an estimate used to allow a member to select a desired term length.

  • Currently the member needs to select what kind of phone number they would like to enter (home, work, or cell.)  Now the loan application will present fields for all three so the member can enter them all if they want to.  (One will still be required.)

  • The label “# of years at this address” will be changed to read “date moved to this address.”  If this date is less than the length configured in your Branch 01 Membership Workflow Controls (Workflow Ctrls: Teller/Mbr Svc on the General Configuration 1 (MNCNFC) menu), new previous address fields will be presented to collect the applicant’s previous address.

  • A “Rent” field has been added to the loan application.  Any information entered in this field will be added to the household database as a “Rent” type debt record.

  • The employment status will default to full time, instead of part time as it currently does.  The current “# of years at job” will now read “date started at position.”

  • A new required checkbox reading, “I have read the disclosures and agree to the terms and conditions displayed here” will be added to the final authorization request screen and must be checked in order to submit the app.  

Updates for Community Property States

Currently the online application asks the applicant if they want to add a co-applicant, but it does not force them to select to add co-applicant information.

Credit unions in states with community property laws will appreciate the optional new selection to “Require co-applicant if status is M (married)” on the Update Credit Union Online Banking Settings screen.  (Access this screen by selecting Online Banking/Mobile Configuration on the Internet Member Service Config (MNCNFE) menu, and then Standard Online Banking.

Once this box is checked, if an applicant indicates that he or she is married, they will be required to enter a co-applicant.  Additionally the co-applicant screen will be labeled “Information about Your Spouse” and the question, “Is your co-applicant your spouse?” will be removed.

  • More information will be in the “Associated Application” booklet available under “A” on the CU*BASE Reference Page.  This booklet will be available with the release.  

Coming Soon!  Updated Links to New Loan Application  

With the updated loan infrastructure we also needed to update the external links to access the loan application.  When the new loan application is deployed, your website manager will need to update your links to access these new applications.

This will NOT affect members who access the loan application directly from online or mobile banking (from the rate board) or from the OBC page.

  • Watch for a notification after the release in regards to updating the links on your website.  Don’t worry, we will run both simultaneously for a while to give everyone time to make the transition.

Submission of an Online Loan Application Triggers Email to Your Loan Department

With this release, your lending team can now get email notifications when new applications hit the lending queue via It’s Me 247 or mobile web banking, the same as they do already via Retailer Direct!

Set this up by checking the Generate email when this underwriter code is used box in the Home Banking (HB) underwriter code configuration.  This code is accessed via Underwriting Code Config on the Loan Products (MNCNFB) menu.  Emails are sent to the email address entered in the Send to email address field, also found in the underwriting code configuration.

More information will be available in the “Selling Products Online” booklet available on the CU*BASE Reference Page under “S.”  This booklet will be available with the release.  

Mortgage Form Changes Result in Integrated Disclosures for TILA and RESPA

On August 1, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will require the new Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure Integrated Disclosures for use on Closed End Mortgage products. These documents will replace the Good Faith Estimate and Settlement Statements (HUD-1A and HUD-1). The new integrated disclosures make it easier for consumers to understand and locate key information, and it also integrate the substantive and procedural requirements for providing these disclosures to consumers. The screens have been designed to make them easy to use:

  • All information entered into these forms is retained for future use

  • Since data is retained, forms can be printed and reprinted easily

  • The updated screens walk you step by step through creating the documents

  • Detailed field descriptions and fields become active only when needed  

  • Be sure to save July 16th from 2-4 PM ET for a free TILA/RESPA training.  Watch for an announcement with more information in early July.

  • More information will be available in the “TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures (TRID)” booklet, available under “T” on the CU*BASE Reference Page.  This booklet will be available with the release.  

Dealer IDs Filter on the Loan Information Report (Trial Balance)

A new Dealer ID filter has been added to the Selective Loan Trial Balance/Loan Information Report with the Select button that allows for multiple dealers to be selected. This will be helpful for credit unions with indirect loans.  Access this report by using Selective Loan Information Rpt on the Reports E (MNRPTE) menu and then selecting Trial Balance.  

EFT

Enhancements for ATM/Debit and Credit Settlement Reports (LPANTX)

With thousands of ATM and debit transactions processed daily by members, balancing the resulting GL with a cluttered report can be quite a burdensome task. That’s why with this release we are making the balancing task so much easier!

The LPANTX1, LPANTX2, and LPANTX3 now have new report names to easily discern which report matches which function. The LPANTX2 and LPANTX3 have been reformatted, and we have grouped the ATM/Debit transactions and the Credit Card transactions by the GL, vendor, and BIN for each settlement date, with convenient totals in each section as you move along to balance.

Snap through your EFT balancing with just a glance at these new, sleek, and streamlined reports!

As mentioned above, we’ve changed the report names to more accurately describe the data contained within them:

  • The LPANTX2, formerly labeled the ATM/Debit Transactions by Network Date and Time is now called the ATM and Debit Card Transaction Summary Report.

  • The LPANTX3, formerly labeled Credit Card Transactions Network Date and Time is now Credit Card Transactions by Network Date and Time Summary Report.   

  • Also the LPANTX1, formerly labeled the Transactions by Network Date and Time is now called the ATM, Debit, and Credit Card Transactions Detail Report.  (The format of this report did not change.)

  • Stay tuned for a separate notification from Client News that includes report samples for easy identification of the location of your daily balancing totals on these new reports.

CEO/Management

Thresholds and New Ratios Added to 5300 Ratios Dashboard

We are continuing to beef up the 5300 Call Report Ratios tool.  With this release, you have the ability to assign a goal and policy limits to each ratio.  That way when viewing the ratios on the 5300 Call Report Ratios Dashboard, it will be easier to spot ratios that are not within a normal range for your credit union.  If policy limits are defined, then the ratio will display in red, yellow or green depending on how the value compares to the specified limits.  

In addition, nine new ratios were added to the tool:  

  • Share and Borrowings/Earnings Assets (FPR)

  • Fair Market Value Investments/Book Value Investments (FPR)

  • Market (Share) Growth (FPR)

  • Net Margin/Average Assets (FPR)

  • Yield on Average Loans (FPR)

  • Provision for Loan Loss/Average Assets (FPR)

  • Change in Portfolio Mix (Canary)

  • Construction and Development Loans/Risk Based Capital (Canary)

  • Commercial Real Estate Loans/Risk Based Capital (Canary)

New! Loan Payment Activity Analysis

The Loan Payment Activity analysis allows you to compare payments received to the due dates that were anticipated as of the prior month-end, allowing you to determine how loan payments are flowing through the system. This will give you the insight to better manage and understand how many dollars monthly need to go out the door in order to break even in your loan portfolio and then grow.

The activity summary shows how many of the actual payments were over, under, or equal to the expected amount, and also provides information on early payoffs and members who made no payments. A variance between expected and actual payments is displayed to provide insight on how fast your loan portfolio is being paid off.

From the summary screen, you can view a breakdown by week of the month or get detailed information on the payments being made. Use the filters on the first screen to isolate loans by payment frequency, product type, loan category, business unit, collateral type, credit score range, and interest range for a more in-depth analysis of your loan portfolio.

New! Net Relationships Dashboard

Do you have more savers than borrowers at your credit union? Until now, this could be a difficult question to answer in CU*BASE, but with the all-new Net Relationship dashboard you can easily find the answer to this and many other questions! The Net Relationship dashboard allows you to analyze your entire membership (or a segment of it) to see how many net savers and net borrowers there are. You can even use the dashboard to identify members with a net zero relationship (typically those sitting at a zero balance) or who are net negative (negative savings accounts/overpaid loans).

From this high level view of your members, you can then drill down to see patronage by month, patronage by age, and balances by age for the population segment. You can even drill down further to the member level to see their account balances by month or how their relationship with the credit union is trending (i.e. month to month look to see whether they were a borrower or saver).

With the added ability to export your results for Member Connect or for use with Common Bonds, the Net Relationships dashboard gives you the complete package of high level analysis and actionable information.

Identify Certificate Renewals in Open-Closed Accounts Dashboard

The Work Open-Closed Accounts dashboard is a robust tool with over 25 ways to analyze your data, while also acting as a member service tool for completing checklists correlating with opened/closed accounts. However, currently when working with certificates the dashboard will only display newly opened CDs, but not your CD renewals.

With this release, you will be able to view certificate activity broken down one of three ways: only new CDs, only CD renewals, or the combined results for the defined period. We’ve also added a term analysis to the Analysis (F15) tool so that you can see the breakdown of certificate accounts by their CD term (added to analysis 2 of 10).

  • Thanks to Sioux Empire Federal Credit Union for their help in designing this enhancement!

Coming Soon!  Fee Income Available for ATM/Debit/Credit Denials

  • Our thanks to Hanesbrands Credit Union for their assistance with this project.

Looking for new service charge income?  Coming soon, you will be able to charge fees when a member is declined for an ATM, debit or credit card transaction. With this release we have enhanced the ATM/debit/credit card platform to count these transactions and fee them accordingly.

  • This feature will be rolled out initially in a Beta format with select credit union partners.  More details will come when it is available across all credit unions.

Collections

Ability to Rename Trackers Now Available

Right now if your Tracker has a key word/phrase related to it, such as “VISA Promotion” there is no way to change this “Reference” to something more fitting such as “Collection Card.” With the 15.1 release this is easy to do, either in a batch mode or by an individual member record.

To the Member Tracker Review screen (accessed via Tracker Review on the Member Account Inquiry screen) we have added a new Update Reference option that allows you to update the Reference field (key word/phrase) of any individual Tracker for that member.

More popular, however, may be the Update Reference Key on Trackers feature newly added to the Member Tracker Tools (MNTRAK) menu.  This new feature allows you to update the reference in batch by Tracker Type. This way all your Collections Trackers (XX) can now all read “Collection Card!”

Accounting/Back Office

Better Sort Features on the Uncollected Funds and Miscellaneous Holds History Screens  

  • This feature was implemented at the result of an Idea Form.

Currently the Uncollected Funds History and Secured Funds History screens (accessed via the Uncollected Funds and Secured Funds buttons on Account Inquiry) sorted records by date but not by time.  For days with a lot of activity, it could be tricky to pin down what the secured or uncollected balance was at any given point during the day.

With this release we have solved this issue by combining the time and date into one sort. While we were at it we made all of the columns sortable making these screens much more user friendly.

Member Service

CU*BASE Screen Changes for the COOP Shared Branch Mandates

As announced previously, we have upgraded CU*BASE to the new COOP Shared Branch platform.  With this release you will see the CU*BASE screen changes implemented.  New features you will included with this release are new reverse lookup options to search for members, new check options (including the addition of business and payroll checks), new information on the statement print, as well as other minor changes.

New Warning When Sending Wire from Membership with Recently-Changed Personal Information

With this release we have added the red flag warning screen to outgoing wire transfers.  Refer to the “Red Flag Warning Added to Outgoing Wires Scan” in the “Audit” section for more details.

Audit

Red Flag Warning Added to Outgoing Wires Scan

This is part of an AuditLink Dirty Dozen project “Wire Transfer Enhancements for Fraud Prevention.”

The red flag monitoring feature (activated via Red Flag Controls on the General Configuration 1 (MNCNFC) menu) provides an extra layer of security to both the credit union and the member by presenting a warning screen if changes have recently been made to the member’s personal information.

This release will add this warning message to the outgoing wire transfers process.  Member Service Representatives will see the helpful red flag warning message after the second outgoing wire screen and before the third one (where the wire is finally posted).  

  • More information will be available in the “Wire Transfers in CU*BASE” booklet available on the CU*BASE Reference Page under “W.”  This booklet will be available with the release.  

Miscellaneous

Five New GOLD Designs Available

With this release you can choose five new themes to customize how CU*BASE GOLD appears for you.  Tired of “Classic Blue,” our standard look of blue and orange?  Try out one of these GOLD Favorite looks: Reflecting Pool, Metalwork, Wedding bells, Deep Winter, and Northern Lights.  Access these new looks on the “Workstation Favorites” screen, accessed by selecting the “Preferences” button on any menu.

System Now Confirms Version of GOLD or LegaSuite is Up to Date

With 15.1 we are performing a .NET update and reactivating version-checking tools with CU*BASE GOLD releases.  If a user logs into a workstation that is not at the proper version of GOLD (or the LegaSuite Client), the user will be instructed to sign off. That workstation must be brought up to date before it can be used to log into CU*BASE.

Windows 8 Certified for CU*BASE

With this release we are also formally certifying that computers with Windows 8 can successfully run CU*BASE.  Currently we have several computers in the field with this arrangement.

Previously Announced

EFT ATM/Debit Card Encryption (Ongoing June - August)

During the summer of 2015, our EFT Programming and SettleMINT EFT teams are working to encrypt all ATM/Debit card databases for each of the EFT vendors that participate with our online credit unions. These projects, staggered throughout June, July, and August, will give credit unions another layer of protection by encrypting member card PANs so that they are no longer immediately visible via the Report Builder and Inquiry tools. The protections are already in place for our online credit card clients, and help the CUSO maintain PCI compliance. See more information in the Client News section of our website:  https://www.cuanswers.com/2015/06/cuanswers-announces-encryption-for-atmdebit-cards/