A central part of Los Angeles-based Kinecta Federal Credit Union’s mission involves “servicing, educating, and helping the communities and really giving back,” says Jorge Cortes, Kinecta’s vice president of enterprise risk management. Established in 1940, Kinecta is now one of the largest credit unions in the U.S., with 250,000 members and assets of $6.8 billion.
That mission includes protecting those communities. Of course, protecting and serving customers is essential for every type of financial institution. And as any financial institution knows, instances of fraud and identity theft have been exploding. To reduce their exposure to these dangers, institutions need to implement rigorous assessments of potential customers and current high-risk account holders.
But that opens them up to another risk. Consumers have become accustomed to fast online service. If they perceive that the onboarding process is too slow and cumbersome, they’re likely to take their financial business elsewhere.
What Kinecta needed was a digital onboarding platform allowing it to onboard customers quickly while still protecting itself and its members from fraudulent activity. CLEAR’s identity verification and fraud detection capabilities deliver 40% more efficient customer onboarding while efficiently verifying identities to help tackle evolving risk and fraud issues.
Find the right risk management tool
“My primary role is ensuring the credit union doesn’t suffer any major losses—limiting exposures of the credit union,” Cortes notes. Avoiding losses doesn’t only maintain Kinecta’s financial stability. It also translates into better rates and services for his customers.
But for many years, Cortes and Kinecta had struggled with several major challenges. Start with the onboarding process. Frontline teams had had to rely heavily on ad hoc checks, parsing raw data, credit score reviews, and escalations to the back office. The time spent on these actions often meant 24- to 48-hour delays in account approval. Even then, these risk assessments didn’t always deliver reliable analyses, and the credit union had found itself having to close troublesome accounts later. Kinecta’s risk teams also had problems sighting red flags regarding vendors as well as account holders. Charge-off and identity theft problems had become distressingly common.
Then Kinecta discovered a new tool—Thomson Reuters CLEAR, a digital platform that accesses in-depth public records, sanctions databases, and media coverage searches. This platform includes CLEAR ID Confirm, which validates customer identities, and CLEAR Risk Inform, which conducts analysis on high-risk customers and vendors.
The onboarding results of CLEAR
Kinecta implemented CLEAR in YEAR. The credit union’s risk management team first used it to investigate account holders who’d suddenly stopped making payments on loans or credit cards. Soon, Kinecta was accessing CLEAR’s other benefits.
It’s truly been a partnership over the years. Thomson Reuters has been right there with us. If we have any issues, the support has always been there. They’ve been fantastic.
VP of Enterprise Risk Management, Kinecta Federal Credit Union
Thanks to CLEAR’s capabilities, Kinecta can verify potential members’ identities and assess their risk profiles more easily and quickly. That allows its frontline team to make onboarding decisions within a couple of hours rather than a couple of days. CLEAR also can alert the credit union’s risk management staff about new judgements, bankruptcies, sanctions, and other significant changes involving high-risk account holders.
In addition, Kinecta uses CLEAR to conduct a regular review cycle of its 350 suppliers. The platform can reveal whether vendors appear on sanctions lists or have had liens against them. “That’s a significant piece in deciding whether to do business with some of our providers,” Cortes says. This capability also helps Kinecta remain compliant with the federal Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and other regulators.
Another benefit: Kinecta can customize CLEAR to suit its needs. For instance, it has integrated the platform with its other third-party systems, such as account-opening software.
Learn more in our case study
According to Cortes, Thomson Reuters CLEAR has been “a significant factor in limiting our risk exposure and our losses.” Since integrating CLEAR into the onboarding process, “we’re seeing fewer identity theft claims, fewer issues with members, and a decrease in our losses due to fraud.” Using CLEAR also has boosted customer satisfaction—which helps Kinecta accomplish its mission.
Financial institutions can gain additional insights from the case study into how Kinecta Federal Credit Union reduced its risk exposure and improved its customer service.
Kinecta FCU enhanced their onboarding process, providing better customer experience for its members
Case Study
Disclaimer
Thomson Reuters is not a consumer reporting agency, and none of its services or the data contained therein constitute a ‘consumer report’ as such term is defined in the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. sec. 1681 et seq. The data provided to you may not be used as a factor in consumer debt collection decisioning, establishing a consumer’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, government benefits, or housing, or for any other purpose authorized under the FCRA. By accessing one of our services, you agree not to use the service or data for any purpose authorized under the FCRA or in relation to taking an adverse action relating to a consumer application.
