The $1.09 billion, Rapid City, S.D.-based Black Hills Federal Credit Union prepares for the kickoff of its new core implementation process in the third in a series documenting its system overhaul.
This inside look previously followed BHFCU’s pre-conversion choices, from developing a strategic initiative through completing RFPs, vendor interviews, scorecards, gap analysis and negotiation, to making a core selection.
“We’ve started a little pre-work, just to get a jump-start,” BHFCU SVP of IT John Buxton said. The credit union expects to launch the actual conversion process in the August-September timeframe this year and actually flip the switch on the new core system Labor Day weekend 2018.
The core project originally kicked off in January 2016 with the credit union’s selection of Chino Hills, Calif.-based Samaha & Associates to help with analysis, planning, selection, documentation, negotiation and implementation.
The negotiation was the last step prior to the official selection of the core. “I think it is important to say there were intense negotiations with the finalist and the runner-up,” Samaha & Associates President/CEO Sabeh Samaha explained. Samaha added it is not just price, its legal, implementations, and service level agreement. “We are trained negotiators; we are firm in getting what we want for the entire relationship. The negotiation is us, not the client.”
In February, BHFCU signed with The Monett, Mo.-based Jack Henry & Associates’ Symitar division to install the Symitar Episys core system.
“We are very excited for the selection,” Ted Bilke, president Symitar, said. “The transition point or pivotal decision point, and what the team really communicated in doing their research they saw a very clear pattern that Episys customers clearly had a significantly better return on assets. That was a significant factor in turning the decision our way.”
Black Hills also purchased an array of JHA products including:
- Synapsys, a member relationship management tool.
- Synergy, a document management suite of products.
- jhaEnterprise Workflow, which automates multi-step business processes.
- ImageCenter, a comprehensive image capture solution.
In addition to its upcoming core conversion, Black Hills FCU launched a new home-banking platform for online and mobile with Digital Insight in March this year. “We are currently live. We’re extremely happy with it so far,” Buxton noted.
Read more Black Hills Federal Credit Union’s Union conversion process in the May 24, 2017 print issue of CU Times.
