In March 2023, Canopy Credit Union partnered with Catalyst Corporate in their effort to implement a mobile person-to-person (P2P) offering that would streamline connection to the nation’s latest payment rails – the FedNow® Service and RTP® – and enable 24/7/365 transactions for their members.
What did this partnership entail? And more importantly, did it meet expectations?
Canopy CEO Charlotte Nemec shares a firsthand account of how the Spokane, Washington-based credit union landed on Moli and their experience as a beta participant on this new P2P debit service.
Overview/process:
Canopy, with $233 million in assets and more than 13,000 members, began looking for a P2P service partner when discussions around real-time payments first emerged. They quickly realized they needed a faster payments partner relationship to achieve their goal of being first to market when the FedNow Service launched in July 2023.
Canopy first narrowed its search by determining what they didn’t want in a faster payments solution. They ruled out the P2P platform within their online banking system, along with other options that required partnering with a “big bank” – a key consideration for Canopy.
“Our core didn’t have connectivity to the FedNow Service or RTP on their roadmap, and we were not willing to wait for them to build out an integration. We were also looking for a service that kept our member data in the credit union sphere,” Nemec said.
Today, technology and convenience reign supreme. Canopy knew their members, like most consumers, expect the same high-tech digital capabilities that banks and fintechs currently offer.
Security was also a chief concern. Canopy wanted to meet member demand for instant payment services, without significant exposure to risk.
Solution:
Around-the-clock availability. Immediate settlement. Advanced reporting. Easy integration. These were the objectives that led Canopy to choose Catalyst Corporate’s Moli solution for their P2P needs. A safe, secure and fast turnkey mobile payments platform, Moli offers a host of benefits and functionality, including:
- Transactions that settle in seconds
- SaaS, stateless and serverless platform hosted through AWS Cloud
- 3D Secure (3DS) enabled technology
- Co-brandable app and marketing kit
- Simple Catalyst-guided onboarding experience
With Moli, Canopy can control transaction limits and address their internal risk parameters, a top priority.
The reporting function of Moli provided another distinct advantage: familiarity.
“Reporting is conducted on a Catalyst platform we’re already using, so I knew the learning curve on the backside would be minimal for my team,” Nemec said.
Once the partnership was finalized, kick-off efforts quickly ensued. Catalyst Corporate’s faster payments experts were on hand to guide Nemec and her team through every step of the onboarding process.
Challenges/opportunities:
As a beta credit union on the Moli debit service, Canopy worked through set up and procedural requirements, and Catalyst Corporate seized every opportunity to turn their feedback into future process improvement. The unique nature of such a relationship fostered a level of understanding and growth between the two parties.
“I’ve enjoyed being an early adopter, because Canopy and Catalyst have learned alongside one another throughout this process,” Nemec said.
Canopy’s challenges and opportunities following the Moli implementation centered around preparing for the FedNow Service. Once Moli was in place, they needed to establish internal rules and compliance standards for sending and receiving FedNow transactions, conduct staff training and educate their members on instant payments.
Why Catalyst Corporate?
Catalyst has continued to work with Canopy on deploying Moli’s advanced mobile P2P capabilities that will include access to the FedNow Service.
Nemec attributes the successful partnership to two factors – “strong communication” and “constructive collaboration.”
To hear more from Canopy Credit Union on their Moli experience, watch the brief testimonial video.
Interested in P2P the Moli way? Contact us for additional details on Catalyst Corporate’s state-of-the-art mobile payments platform.