Best Innovation Group (BIG), a credit union innovation catalyst, today announced the certification of another Amazon Alexa voice banking skill: this one for Numerica Credit Union.
The $2 billion financial institution serving Washington and Idaho has rolled out the skill to its 137,000 members via BIG’s partnership with Symitar® for the Financial Innovations Voice Experience (FIVE) platform.
BIG created the first Amazon Alexa skill specifically designed to allow credit union members to perform transaction-based functions. Members can transfer between accounts, make loan payments, and access balances and account histories for checking, savings, and loans. All of this is done using voice commands secured by a single sign on and integrated to the Episys® core processing platform.
The transaction options available through BIG’s skill, which is integrated to Numerica’s Episys® core, provide members full access to their credit union accounts using FIVE’s intuitive voice interface. Other offerings allow members to query for general information, such as loan rates or credit card balances.
Through the certified Alexa skill, BIG’s FIVE platform enables users to access all of their credit union accounts, spanning checking, savings, car loans, mortgages, and credit cards. It also offers member engagement capabilities, including educational audio clips on critical topics such as security and financial literacy.
“The one-on-one member relationship has long been a key credit union difference,” explained BIG CEO and Co-founder John Best. “As credit unions evolve to provide the technology solutions members value and expect, it becomes more challenging to retain that personal touch. FIVE was built with the goal of preserving that unique relationship. From the beginning of our project, we knew that the experience was important. We put a lot of effort into learning what members want to accomplish and how they speak about these activities. The objective is to optimize the member experience and enable credit unions to expand their unique branding across voice interactions.”
BIG’s FIVE platform currently supports Amazon Alexa Voice Services but is extensible to allow financial institutions to easily expand to future voice-based products. As technology evolves, FIVE positions financial institutions to rapidly add new capabilities and additional voice services.
“We take a lot of pride in the technology we offer our members,” said KayCee Murray, Numerica’s Vice President of Information Technology. “We strive to make everyday banking easier for our members, whether in person, over the phone, or remotely. An Alexa skill gives our members yet another way to access their accounts at their convenience, allowing them to make transfers and payments, block lost debit and credit cards, and check account balances.”
The rapid growth of Amazon Alexa devices and skills is impressive. Access to financial accounts is a sensitive area, however, and only a handful of skills have been certified for these tasks. BIG is among a select group of companies to create an extensible skill specifically for financial institutions, which enables Alexa access for their clients.