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KESHO steps up its commitment to the Credit Union sector in Britain and Ireland

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© Clifford

Omnio, one of Britain’s leading Banking as a Service platforms has announced a new partnership with its Credit Union business KESHO and CUFA, a leading analytics company supporting managers and trustees working within the Credit Union sector.

The new partnership will provide a new upgrade in analytic capabilities for the Credit Union sector through KESHO’s advanced Curtains platform.

As one of the leading software providers in the sector, CUFA Lending Analytics (CLA) is offering solutions that include the implementation of proven statistical techniques to compute potential benefits as well as risks within a consumer loan portfolio.

The announcement of the partnership will enable CUFA to combine its analytics capabilities with Curtains – delivering a comprehensive financial management solution to the sector.

Speaking about the partnership this week, David McAuley, CEO, Donore CU, Ireland stated, “We are a small credit union that aspires to be a big one. Using CUFA analytics is a big part of our growth strategy. We’re now able to make more, better loans with the insight it gives us for product design, underwriting, risk-based pricing and marketing focus.”

Gerry McConville, CEO for Capital CU in Ireland managing €212 million in assets also commented, “Using CUFA on target CUs during the pre-merger process gave us insights into key areas which would otherwise be difficult to assess. It helped us prioritize effort and focus on the big issues.”

Credit Unions will now have access to new tools enabling them to gain advanced knowledge of their business lending across its member base. Credit Unions can then deploy their tools to enable risk-based lending against historic data and member behaviour, enabling growth of the Credit Union whilst assessing its risk portfolio and improving lending availability to new and existing members. As a result, the CUFA/Kesho partnership aims to offer a measured, secure and affordable lending to thousands of Credit Union members.

CUFA Lending Analytics’ computations are based on the detailed recent history of a loan portfolio, including its unique record of write-offs and post-write-off recoveries. Up to 25 months of this information is extracted directly from the Curtains platform or the data warehouse, and the resulting database is updated monthly so that recent experience is reflected in CUFA’s outputs. The CUFA dataset for each lender consists of a comprehensive set of data fields for every loan, as of each month-end for the period maintained.

CUFA Managing Director Ralph Swoboda
Ralph Swoboda / © CUFA

Commenting about the partnership CUFA Managing Director Ralph Swoboda said, “We’re delighted to form this new partnership with Kesho, which we highly respect as the leading provider of IT solutions to credit unions and other lenders in the UK. We look forward to working with Kesho to provide its clients with our lending risk analytics solution, which is now used by nearly all the leading credit unions in the Republic of Ireland, as well as by credit unions in the UK and US.”

Lindsay Ward Executive Director, Credit Union Sector OMNIO commented, “Working with Ralph and the Team at CUFA is a significant development in the evolving Credit Union sector. The CUFA analytics will add real value to all our Credit Union partners and will allow them to lend even more responsibly and fairly. More and more of our partners need enriched data and enhance technology from their suppliers and this is just the first stage of our digital roadmap and we look forward to 2021 and the launch of our next generation digital platform.”

Declan Mooney, Director of Business Development added, “At CUFA, we are not just a software provider. We are actively engaged in facilitating collaboration and exchange of experience between our clients. This has been very effective in Ireland in the areas of new product development and consolidation. We look forward to sharing that knowledge and experience with our new Curtains based clients.”

Bill Hall, Business Development manager for the Credit Union Sector for OMNIO reinforced this opinion by saying, “It’s exciting being part of the Omnio team as we prepare and roll out the development and delivery of these new services to Credit Unions. I have full confidence in the team to continue to support the sector both through “Curtains” as it is now and in the future with the exciting platform developments that are being planned. We are looking forward to working with Credit Unions both large or small to provide the best possible services to communities across the UK and Ireland.”

Adrian Cannon, Omnio Group CEO, believes that, “Omnio’s aim is to empower Credit Union’s with affordable technology that lets them compete in the globalized technology driven banking sector without losing sight of their unique local focus. The Credit Union sector represents the best of financial services in its desire to deliver tailored services to individual members based on knowledge and understanding of their needs. CUFA adds a new dimension to this member understanding and will allow the Credit Unions to do more for the communities they serve”.

“Kesho is here to stay and will continue to build products specific to the Credit Union Sector, providing services for all. We continue to listen to the sector. Our next generation digital platform will evolve with direct input from the loyal users of Curtains. Our passion is to deliver excellence within the sector and provide products that enhance the growth and stability of the sector,” concluded Ward.