ROYAL OAK – Kelli Ellsworth Etchison from the mid-Michigan credit union LAFCU highlights the cool tech used, including a drive-up, interactive teller machine, on this edition of M2 TechCast. The credit union was started 80 years ago by Oldsmobile. Now LAFCU has a state charter and serves anyone who lives, works, worships or attends school in 11 counties.
Ellsworth Etchison said the mandate is to deliver services to its 60,000 clients the way they want them. Increasingly that is through technology, such as the mobile banking app. It now includes remote deposit capture for checks, card control for debit or credit cards, bill pay, all from the LAFCU mobile app. You can even apply for loans.
For instance, LAFCU has upgraded its automated teller machine to an interactive screen where you can look at the LAFCU employee and deal with them face-to-face electronically at its main office. Some of LAFCU’s offices are 45 minutes away from West Lansing.
LAFCU also has a “smart office” that offers video conferencing. If they go into a branch and all the employees are busy, that member can connect with a teller who may actually be miles away. Members can apply for loans, open accounts even at smaller footprint branches where the staff is smaller, or where the staff may not have the knowledge to, say, set up a trust account.
To learn more about LAFCU, click on https://soundcloud.com/podcastdetroit/m2techcast-episode-45-left-q-credit-union
