Singlify for Credit Unions – Project Update No 1

We recently shared the exciting news that with funding from Fair4All Finance we are building on existing capabilities in the Singlify app to deliver a full core banking, loan origination and CRM system for UK credit unions.

This project update is the first in a series of updates on progress and specifics of what we will be delivering and when. It’s been a very busy month for the team!

We previously described the innovative “for the sector, by the sector” approach, in working with a number of independent credit unions (including Citysave Credit Union, Great Western Credit Union, Central Liverpool Credit Union, Notts and Lincs Credit Union). Since the initial announcement an additional credit union has agreed to contribute to the project. In early July we got together with all the credit unions in Manchester to update them on our plans and outline the schedule of activity for the rest of the year.

The majority of the Singlify team attended the session including our Nairobi based developers and implementation consultants. It was too good an opportunity to miss to meet in person with a group that represented the organisations that we are developing for.

We were delighted to inform the group that Great Western Credit Union have agreed to share the approach they have implemented through their Microsoft Dynamics based systems. This means we have the inside track on a large number of process flows, loan origination flows, CRM setup, portal design, compliance procedures and more. The inputs from Great Western Credit Union will significantly reduce project timescales and allow us to deliver more functionality earlier and with greater confidence of the fit to the operating model of a UK credit union.

While the developers build out core functionality to reflect the Great Western blueprint we will be running a series of workshops with the other credit unions. These sessions will map their individual processes against the blueprint and help us to understand the nuances and variations in the way that they all operate and ensure we build the necessary flexibility into the system. We expect these to include areas such as member journeys, credit control processing, member segmentation, engaging with payroll partners, integration requirements with third party systems etc. Our goal is to deliver sufficient flexibility in the system to achieve code free implementations.

We will also be building our persona profiles for personas such as the Member Services Manager, Lending Manager, Credit Control, Finance Director, Compliance Managers and CEO roles. This will include their functional requirements and an assessment of how we can improve the efficiency and quality of their everyday operations.

In our previous announcement we also talked about the importance of a partner eco-system. We don’t intend to try to do everything. We will focus on our core competencies and partner with complementary solution providers. This approach leverages the API based architecture of the Salesforce.com technology that Singlify is built on.

In addition to our growing relationships with other exciting innovators in the sector such as CU Apps, Engage, FinDock, GoCardless and NestEgg, we have now identified approximately 20 potential integration partners. Again our credit unions will help us to prioritise these and scope out the level of data and process integration required. We will soon have prototypes for the first of these integrations and will aim to provide links to demo videos in future project updates.

So in summary, a very busy and productive month since our initial announcement! Based on everything we have learned in this period we remain very confident in our ability to deliver a transformational solution for UK credit unions and look forward to providing further updates on progress.