Message from the Chairman
Board planning is a living process at CUCM. It involves back-and-forth engagement with credit unions, because in order for CUCM to strategize, we need to understand what credit unions’ strategies are, and where they are going.
In the past, CUCM engaged in multiple scenario planning exercises, examining trends and factors in order to try to predict five, 10, 20 or more years into the future of the environment for credit unions. We recently settled on a “third horizon” — seven to 10 years out — planning horizon.
As much as any ongoing process has a starting point, ours starts with CUCM — using internal and external expertise — providing information to credit unions that will help them understand the disruptors in the provincial, national and global financial services environments. Credit unions then take that information and consider it, along with factors in their own environments and organizations, to build their own strategies. Those strategies then feed back into CUCM’s strategy.
All board members are actively engaged in the planning process throughout the cycle, each eager to ensure that we consider all credit unions’ perspectives and concerns.
There occasionally appear, side-by-side with our cyclical, highly interactive approach to planning, certain realities of the marketplace. On those occasions, CUCM has taken an increasingly stronger leadership position. We saw that, in 2019, in the case of payments.
Payments Canada is committed to modernizing the national payments infrastructure, processes and policies. An effective processing infrastructure is essential to realizing value from payments and ensuring credit unions can deliver innovative services to members, at their own pace, with partners of
their choice.
With the kind of regulatory and technological changes we saw on the horizon, we needed a solution.
CUCM, Alberta Central, SaskCentral, Credit Union Payments Services (CUPS), Celero Solutions and the largest seven credit unions on the Prairies came together in 2019 to form the Prairie Payments Strategy Group. Together, we examined our payments operations, defined our requirements, and sought a solution that would work for all Prairie credit unions, regardless of size or individual capacity. The group evaluated the strategic and technical approaches available to modernize payments infrastructure, and determined that a Payments-as-a-Service (PaaS) model would best position credit unions for future success. Eventually, the group identified IBM as the preferred service provider of such a solution and, by late 2019, all three centrals resolved to proceed with the agreement.
The PaaS with IBM is a long-term partnership that ensures Prairie credit unions have the support to deliver excellent payments capabilities to their members. The Prairie centrals will administer the IBM contract as a three-way joint venture, with overall governance provided by a management board made of representatives from credit unions, centrals, and payments experts.
The financial services landscape will continue to shift and change, competition from familiar competitors will grow, regulatory requirements will increase, and legislation will open up the industry to more competition from fintechs. The process of defining our collective needs, developing our requirements and finding a workable solution, as we did with payments, is indicative of the path forward for credit unions: one of collective planning and action.
CUCM’s board and management play an instrumental role on both fronts. By continually learning, listening, understanding and responding to the environment — short- to mid-term, but especially on a five- to 10-year horizon — we are able to not only apprise credit unions of what they should be considering as individual entities, but also propose action collectively when it is required.
I would like to thank CEO Garth Manness and CUCM’s senior leadership team for their continued excellent efforts on behalf of all Manitoba credit unions, and for their support of the system’s governance process, from peer group meetings to CUCM board meetings and planning sessions. On that point, too, I would like to thank my fellow board members, including our four newest members, for their efforts on behalf of not just their own peer groups, but also the entire credit union system.
As much as any ongoing process has a starting point, ours starts with CUCM — using internal and external expertise — providing information to credit unions that will help them understand the disruptors in the provincial, national and global financial services environments. Credit unions then take that information and consider it, along with factors in their own environments and organizations, to build their own strategies. Those strategies then feed back into CUCM’s strategy.
All board members are actively engaged in the planning process throughout the cycle, each eager to ensure that we consider all credit unions’ perspectives and concerns.
There occasionally appear, side-by-side with our cyclical, highly interactive approach to planning, certain realities of the marketplace. On those occasions, CUCM has taken an increasingly stronger leadership position. We saw that, in 2019, in the case of payments.
Payments Canada is committed to modernizing the national payments infrastructure, processes and policies. An effective processing infrastructure is essential to realizing value from payments and ensuring credit unions can deliver innovative services to members, at their own pace, with partners of
their choice.
With the kind of regulatory and technological changes we saw on the horizon, we needed a solution.
CUCM, Alberta Central, SaskCentral, Credit Union Payments Services (CUPS), Celero Solutions and the largest seven credit unions on the Prairies came together in 2019 to form the Prairie Payments Strategy Group. Together, we examined our payments operations, defined our requirements, and sought a solution that would work for all Prairie credit unions, regardless of size or individual capacity. The group evaluated the strategic and technical approaches available to modernize payments infrastructure, and determined that a Payments-as-a-Service (PaaS) model would best position credit unions for future success. Eventually, the group identified IBM as the preferred service provider of such a solution and, by late 2019, all three centrals resolved to proceed with the agreement.
The PaaS with IBM is a long-term partnership that ensures Prairie credit unions have the support to deliver excellent payments capabilities to their members. The Prairie centrals will administer the IBM contract as a three-way joint venture, with overall governance provided by a management board made of representatives from credit unions, centrals, and payments experts.
The financial services landscape will continue to shift and change, competition from familiar competitors will grow, regulatory requirements will increase, and legislation will open up the industry to more competition from fintechs. The process of defining our collective needs, developing our requirements and finding a workable solution, as we did with payments, is indicative of the path forward for credit unions: one of collective planning and action.
CUCM’s board and management play an instrumental role on both fronts. By continually learning, listening, understanding and responding to the environment — short- to mid-term, but especially on a five- to 10-year horizon — we are able to not only apprise credit unions of what they should be considering as individual entities, but also propose action collectively when it is required.
I would like to thank CEO Garth Manness and CUCM’s senior leadership team for their continued excellent efforts on behalf of all Manitoba credit unions, and for their support of the system’s governance process, from peer group meetings to CUCM board meetings and planning sessions. On that point, too, I would like to thank my fellow board members, including our four newest members, for their efforts on behalf of not just their own peer groups, but also the entire credit union system.