A few weeks ago, we all received an email from OAS FCU that made all alarms go off. It was encrypted, and it contained our name and a couple of other pieces of personal information that the Credit Union was asking us to verify or change. It looked somewhat like a phishing attempt, and I know that the Credit Union received a lot of calls from members asking about it -I know because I had to write a quick advisory for social media informing people that indeed it was a real OASFCU encrypted email-. It was unusual but not without logic.
A month and a half ago we all received an actual printed letter from OAS FCU in the mail, about the subject of the conversion. We know that something is going happen at the end of September, something good, and that we’re supposed to get ready. But that is pretty much what many people understand to date, so I’m here to explain some of it.
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| Image: Octavian Rosca on Unsplash. |
What’s this conversion all about?
Every financial institution has a huge program where they keep the accounts. The program has our names, our data, and whenever we open an account -in the case of OAS FCU, all accounts except mortgages and credit cards- they get opened on that program. It’s where all our transactions take place, where our account histories are, and where all the financial reports that the credit union needs to function are generated. It’s the banking platform.
OAS FCU is about to switch its current platform for an entirely new one. The reason for the change is the overall improvement of this platform. The current one is very good, but it’s lacking some of the abilities that the new platform has -plus some different, outstanding characteristics- that make this the right time to change from one to the other.
Because of the switch, they’re going to change the format of all our data, downloading it from the current platform, and uploading it to the new one. The process of reformatting is already taking place behind the scenes without us noticing, and it doesn’t affect is. The one moment when it will affect us will be during the conversion weekend, which is taking place from October 31 through November 5 of this year.
Are there so many improvements to be gained from this new platform?
Undoubtedly. The new platform has a completely modern interface that allows it to communicate in real time with other platforms that are key to OASFCU’s operations: debit cards, credit cards, wires (bank and ACH), online banking, etc. Through this new automatic data exchange the credit union will see a reduction of the functions of many employees; this
The new interface also has a sort of open door to adding new tech that will be of use to members. What I mean is that it allows OAS FCU to integrate different types of fintech, if they’re deemed a good idea. Fintech used to be limited to the software that improved banking operations, but in the last decade it’s expanded into consumer banking needs: mobile banking, wallet services, budgeting apps, contracts apps, personal cryptocurrency managing apps, they’re all fintech.
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Furthermore, this platform is going to allow OAS FCU to offer each one of us specific services and products that fit our specific financial needs throughout our lives, each at the right time. The purpose in this is forging a closer connection with members, so that OAS FCU feels less like a financial institution and more of our financial team in life. Kind of awesome, don’t you think?
What changes will we, the members, see?
One of the greatest visible improvements will be that Member Services will be more personal and we’ll be able to get assistance with many different things from almost every employee of the Credit Union. It will no longer be that we open an account here, request a wire there, get a copy of a check with a third person. The staff are currently being trained to use this platform with all its benefits, and so that they can help us with everything.
The online and mobile banking system is going to be a lot easier to use and will have many more customizing options that we didn’t have before. I don’t know about you, but the idea that the Mobile Banking is going to be a scaled replica of the online banking system, which we’ll access also using the same login information, is a huge advance.
Regarding our own use of these systems, I’ve got to be honest: at first, we’re going to be a bit lost, especially with online banking, since we all depend hugely on that. Like they’ve said, from October 31 through November 5, online banking, mobile banking and the Credit Union itself won’t be available, because they’ll be making the switch-over. After that, it’ll be our turn to learn the new online banking, which starts with the use of our login credentials and the creation of a new password using a one-time code (only the first time) to grant us each the secure, individual access to the new system.
Once in, one of the changes we’ll all see is that all our accounts (where we’re either accountholders or joint owners) will show up right off the bat on online banking. The ones that aren’t really of our own use, we’ll be able to “hide” them, so we don’t have to view them every time we log in.
However, maybe not everyone likes the idea of seeing their siblings’, parents’, children’s and cousins’ accounts. It’s logical, and for that OAS FCU is also giving us several solutions: we can remove ourselves from certain account (or ask our joint accountholders to remove themselves), or we can close those accounts to open new ones. It sounds messy but in the long run these are legal solutions that make ownership of accounts a much cleaner affair for all.
If you need to find out on which accounts you’re owner or joint accountholder, contact the Membership department by email at membership@oasfcu.org.
To help in this whole thing, here’s the form you’ll need to remove yourself from an account (note: a member cannot remove another from his/her account; only the person leaving can make that request). This one’s the form you need to update your account and its beneficiaries after the other owner has left it. And this is the form to close an account.
The (temporary!) loss of account customization
Like I said, the new online/mobile banking is going to have many more personalized settings for viewing and handling our accounts: hiding accounts, renaming them, grouping them, more eAlert options for unusual activity, etc. However, we are switching programs, and this means that all our old settings and saved features will be wiped clean. We’ll need to set our view and settings all over again once we’re in the new system. OAS FCU’s comments and recommendations on this are:
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- No need to worry about our recent account history, that’ll be there in the new online banking.
- Nor need we worry about our CUMA mortgage and ezCardInfo credit card platforms. They’re independent from the old online banking and they will show up in the new one just the same, with the same look and abilities as before.
- As soon as we get our next eStatement alert via email next week, we should go to online banking and download/print all the eStatements available there. Those won’t transfer with the conversion.
- Screenshot our eAlert settings so we can re-enter them in the new system.
- Make copies of any Click-Pay payments (recurring or not), as well as the payment histories. We’ll have to put those manually into the new system.
- And, while this is not strictly necessary, personally I plan to make sure to download the pre-filled template of my wires and ACH transfers because if something doesn’t transfer right, I definitely don’t want to be looking all that information up again.
Till next time!
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