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Category: Banking Event

Building a Strong Risk Management Culture: Protecting Your Credit Union from Financial Misconduct

Building a Strong Risk Management Culture: Protecting Your Credit Union from Financial Misconduct

In today’s financial landscape, fostering a culture of accountability and strong internal controls is essential to protecting your credit union from financial risks, including fraud and embezzlement. A solid risk management framework isn’t about distrust—it’s about creating a transparent, well-governed environment where everyone is aligned with ethical best practices.

  1. Strengthening Internal Controls

A well-structured system of checks and balances is key to mitigating financial risks. Consider implementing:

  • Clear Segregation of Duties – No single individual should have unchecked authority over financial transactions, vendor payments, or account reconciliations.
  • Dual Approvals for Large Transactions – Requiring multiple approvals for high-value payments adds an extra layer of oversight.
  • Regular Internal Reviews – Periodic financial reviews help identify discrepancies before they become major issues.
  • Access Controls – Limiting access to sensitive financial systems ensures that only authorized personnel can perform specific actions.
  1. Promoting Transparency and Oversight

Encouraging transparency across all levels of the credit union strengthens trust and accountability. Boards and leadership teams can:

  • Encourage Open Communication – A culture where employees feel comfortable raising concerns leads to proactive problem-solving.
  • Perform Routine Audits – Independent and forensic audits help maintain confidence in financial operations.
  • Ensure Timely Financial Reporting – Delayed or missing financial reports may signal underlying issues that need immediate attention.
  1. Recognizing Red Flags in Financial Activity

Being aware of unusual financial patterns can help identify risks early. Some key warning signs include:

  • Unexplained or Repetitive Transactions – Unusual or duplicate payments to vendors or internal accounts.
  • Significant Lifestyle Changes – Rapid increases in personal wealth without a clear explanation.
  • Resistance to Oversight – Avoidance of audits or financial reviews may indicate a need for further scrutiny.
  1. Encouraging Ethical Leadership and Employee Accountability

A strong risk management culture starts with leadership setting the tone for integrity and ethical decision-making. Boards and executive teams should:

  • Lead by Example – Demonstrate transparency in financial decisions and adhere to all internal policies.
  • Implement Whistleblower Protections – Employees should have a secure, confidential way to report concerns.
  • Provide Risk and Compliance Training – Educating staff and leadership on ethical business practices reduces vulnerabilities.
  • Implement a CEO Succession Plan  – Avoid over-reliance on one executive.
  1. Leveraging Technology for Fraud Prevention

Using automated fraud detection tools can help credit unions monitor transactions in real time. Consider:

  • Expense Monitoring – Review actual spending to budget and track accounts payable and expenses.
  • Audit Trail – Utilize automated log change activity and review transaction approvals.
  • Fraud Detection – Implement internal suspicious activity tracking and monitor hidden transactions.
  • Dual Controls – Utilize built in dual control settings for loan funding, employee reimbursements, accounts payable and investment tracking.

A Culture of Trust and Accountability

Risk management isn’t about suspicion—it’s about building a resilient, well-governed institution that serves its members with integrity. By reinforcing strong internal controls, fostering transparency, and leveraging technology, credit unions can create an environment where financial integrity thrives.

About CSPI

Amp up your digital banking experience with our powerful solutions suite! Our cutting-edge Online & Mobile Banking features a fresh, new UI that’s sleek, intuitive, and ready to impress. With Aurora Advantage Core Platform, Document Imaging, Item Processing, Remote Deposit Capture, Managed Services, and seamless API integrations, we empower financial institutions to automate processes, boost efficiency, and deliver an unmatched user experience. Don’t settle for average—partner with us and bring industry-leading, game-changing digital solutions to your members and unmatched support they can rely on.

Connect with CSPI on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Filed Under: Banking Event, Featured

10 Tips to Safeguard Online Banking for Account Holders

10 Tips to Safeguard Online Banking for Account Holders

During International Fraud Awareness Week, we’re highlighting measures to implement to protect your account holders and ensure a secure banking experience.

Online banking offers unmatched convenience, but it’s essential to keep your account holders data secure from fraudsters. Implementing these ten tips can help safeguard your customers financial data and provide peace of mind:

1. Strong Password Enforcement

Require account holders to create strong passwords using a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.

2. Mandatory Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

To provide an additional layer of protection, require MFA for accessing online and mobile banking platforms. This ensures only authorized users can log in. CSPI supports SMS text messages, Google Authenticator and email notifications. MFA can be configured to only prompt when accessing from a new IP address or a set period of time.

For your commercial account holders, SMB’s may also benefit from adding another layer of security protection utilizing a DUO token environment.

3. Regular Account Monitoring Tools

Encourage users to monitor transactions to detect and address unauthorized activity promptly. As a bank admin, ensure you are reviewing the User Reset List and User Contact Changes reports.

4. Real-Time Transaction Alerts

Encourage or require account holders to enable real-time alerts for transactions and account balances. These alerts notify users of any account activity, helping account holders stay informed and identify suspicious actions immediately.

5. Device Security Standards

Encourage users to keep devices up-to-date with the most recent operating systems and security patches.

6. Secure Connections Only

The financial institution can designate specific IP addresses to block, ensuring that access to online banking is restricted from unauthorized or high-risk locations.

7. Debit Card Management Features

To enhance account security, we partner with debit card providers to deliver tools to block and unblock debit cards through our mobile and online banking platforms, allowing you to deactivate your card when not in use.

8. Phishing Awareness and Reporting

Educate account holders about phishing scams and encourage immediate reporting of suspicious messages. Our systems never request sensitive information like passwords or PINs via email or text.

9. Automatic Logout for Inactivity

For added protection, we enforce automatic session timeouts for all online banking platforms, ensuring accounts are not left open if users forget to log out.

10. Continuous Fraud Education

Actively share fraud prevention tips, tools, and updates to keep account holders informed about evolving threats.

During International Fraud Awareness Week and beyond, we’re committed to empowering FI’s with the knowledge to keep account holders’ data secure. Your security is a shared responsibility, and we are committed to providing robust safeguards to protect your financial information. By adhering to these requirements and leveraging our security tools, you can enjoy peace of mind with every banking transaction.

Protecting your accounts is our priority. Together, we can outsmart fraudsters and build a safer banking experience.

Join Us for an upcoming FREE Webinar!

Scheduled Tuesday, December 17th at 2:00 pm CST. Register here.

About CSPI

Amp up your digital banking experience with our powerful suite of solutions! Our cutting-edge Online & Mobile Banking features a fresh, new UI that’s sleek, intuitive, and ready to impress. With advanced Document Imaging, Item Processing, Remote Deposit Capture, Managed Services, and seamless API integrations, we empower your institution to automate processes, boost efficiency, and deliver an unmatched user experience. Don’t settle for average—partner with us and bring industry-leading, game-changing digital solutions to your customers and unmatched support they can rely on.

Connect with CSPI on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Filed Under: Banking Event, Featured

CSPI Climbs to New Heights, Onboarding 16 Community Bank Clients Through Q1 of 2025

CSPI Climbs to New Heights, Onboarding 16 Community Bank Clients Through Q1 of 2025

Jefferson City, MO – July 2024

Computer Service Professionals, Inc. (CSPI) announces the successful signing of sixteen new image processing clients as we conclude second quarter and kick off the third quarter of 2024. This achievement comes in response to a recent announcement of the Jack Henry™ Genesys Check Imaging Suite™ being sunset, prompting CSPI to step in and provide these community banks with the essential solutions they need.

Achieving Goals

CSPI, known for being core-agnostic, collaborates with a variety of community bank core providers. Our original flagship software, Aurora Image Processing, has been a cornerstone since the early 90s, reflecting over 35 years of partnerships with community banks.

Our image processing software is designed to transform every bank employee into a Customer Service Representative. With immediate access to captured and balanced data, our modules are engineered to seamlessly interface with non-CSPI platforms. Whether it’s retrieving customer information from your core system or passing images to internet banking products, we ensure a smooth and efficient data exchange process.

 

About CSPI

As a valued software and service provider leading the FinTech industry for 33 years, CSPI continues to focus on the needs of today’s progressive community banks and credit unions to meet the growing demands of account holders by providing digital banking, document management and image processing.

We are core-agnostic and support API-first technology to create real-time integration for our Aurora Advantage Digital Banking product suite. Our dedicated team strives to enhance the user experience, deliver innovative solutions, significantly increase productivity, and provide exceptional service that exceeds your expectations. We believe if our customer succeeds, we succeed.

Connect with CSPI on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Filed Under: Banking Event

Aurora Cold Reports Propels CSPI to Sign Eight New Community Banks in Q2 2024

Aurora Cold Reports Propels CSPI to Sign Eight New Community Banks in Q2 2024

Jefferson City, MO – June 2024 Computer Service Professionals, Inc. (CSPI) proudly announces the successful signing of eight new clients in the second quarter of 2024. Our new community bank clients chose CSPI’s Aurora Cold Reports software solution to enhance their operational efficiency for secure report storage.

Brad Epple, President & CEO

“We are thrilled to welcome these eight community banks to our expanding CSPI family,” stated Brad Epple CEO of CSPI. “For over 35 years, our unwavering commitment to delivering top-notch digital banking software solutions has driven our success. This achievement underscores our dedication to innovation and excellence in the banking industry.”

CSPI’s cold report storage software is recognized for its user-friendly interface and automated seamless integration capabilities with a multitude of core banking platforms. It empowers financial institutions to create custom report stores,  securely download and format files, and manage large volumes of core report data, to ensure banks can easily access historical reports and comply with regulatory requirements.

For more information about CSPI and our comprehensive suite of banking software solutions, please complete the contact form.

About CSPI

As a valued software and service provider leading the FinTech industry for 33 years, CSPI continues to focus on the needs of today’s progressive credit unions and community banks to meet the growing demands of account holders by providing digital banking, document management and image processing.

We are core-agnostic and support API-first technology to create real-time integration for our Aurora Advantage Digital Banking product suite. Our dedicated team strives to enhance the user experience, deliver innovative solutions, significantly increase productivity, and provide exceptional service that exceeds your expectations. We believe if our customer succeeds, we all succeed.

Connect with CSPI on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Filed Under: Banking Event

Digital Banking Transformation Paradigm

Digital Banking Transformation Paradigm

February 11, 2021 | Blog

As digital banking became the primary source on the front line during the 2020 pandemic, many financial institutions (FI’s) craved digital banking transformation through product enhancements or new Fintech solutions to provide relief and convenience for their account holders while their lobbies remained closed. 

According to an analysis by Novantas in August of 2020, 56% of banks said teller volumes are down by more than 31% from Q4 in 2019, while 26% of banks saw digital sales increase by more than 90%! In fact, as online banking systems were flooded with record high usage during the dispersal of the first stimulus check, many industry wide outages of online banking were reported by big players. We are happy to announce that CSPI customers experienced 98.9% uptime. Throughout 2020,  community banks and credit unions upheld their mission of serving their communities; instead of waiting out the pandemic, they recognized the opportunity to better serve their account holders and took action. These FI’s were nimble and acted quickly in effort to capitalize on their digital banking transformation.

Before we continue evaluating digital banking trends, lets ensure we understand the terminology. We’ll start by defining the original terms of internet or online banking which are sometimes improperly interchanged with digital banking.  Online banking has revolutionized our relationship with financial institutions, as account holders no longer need to visit a physical branch to manage their everyday financial transactions. Online banking enables users to process core transactions via their laptop, desktop computer, or smartphone. While online banking focuses on digitizing the “core” aspects of banking, digital banking encompasses digitizing every program and activity undertaken by financial institutions and their customers.  Digital banking involves high levels of process automation and web-based services that may include APIs enabling cross-institutional services to deliver banking products and provide transactions.

As products such as online banking continue evolving into more robust applications and processes, falling under the digital banking umbrella, the user experience is transformed. Throughout the pandemic, CSPI had the honor to assist numerous financial institutions with their digital banking transformation.  Below are a few trends our team noticed within our Aurora Online and Digital Banking platform:

•  While many believed voice banking was a product of the past, FI’s received a large influx in call volumes as account holders awaited their stimulus checks to be deposited and kept a close eye monitoring their account balances throughout 2020.

•  As the virus continued to spread, financial institutions closed lobbies and operated mostly from drive-thru facilities. Many FI’s opted to enhance their mobile banking offerings by adding modules such as mobile remote deposit (MRD). MRD not only added convenience for account holders to deposit a check from their mobile banking app utilizing their mobile device, but also aided efforts to slow the spread while protecting the FI’s team members with less physical customer interaction.

•  Another popular trend was adding bill payment modules such as eBills and person to person (P2P) transfers.  Our seamless bill pay integration allows account holders to easily create payees, schedule and manage their payments all from a single screen, and incorporates P2P transactions.

•  Incorporating card management services into mobile banking apps allowed cardholders to receive another layer of protection to prevent or quickly detect fraudulent activity by receiving custom alerts when your card is used and blocking transactions when the card is not in use.  As fraudulent activity continues to rise, account holders appreciate having control of their debit card with only a few simple taps. Our clients saw a quicker adoption rate of the card management services once integrated with our mobile app as most account holders didn’t want to manage separate apps.

The bottom line is, financial institutions that quickly pivoted their focus towards digital banking transformation were rewarded by creating stickier account relations, and drawing the consumer closer. At CSPI, our team is always focused on enhancing the account holders experience. If your FI is seeking a digital banking transformation, please contact us!  We would appreciate the opportunity to grow with you.  

5 Tips to Enhance Your Digital Banking

Filed Under: Banking Event

CSPI Aurora Advantage Launches Our New Website!

Welcome to our New Website!

 

October 1, 2020 | Blog

We’re excited to introduce you to the Aurora Advantage and ready to ‘exceed your expectations.’

After a few months of planning, we are delighted to announce the launch of our newly redesigned website. CSPI has also incorporated a rebranding utilizing Aurora Advantage which was designed around our existing Aurora Product Suite. If you visit www.cspiinc.com, you will be redirected to our new website URL www.AuroraDigitalBanking.com.

Our current community banking partners will find our product offerings under Solutions and Aurora Advantage Banking. You will still be able to quickly submit a support ticket or join a support session from our home page or by visiting the support page. Be sure to watch the News & Events section for upcoming events and to subscribe to our newsletter.

Our new credit union partners will find product offerings listed under Solutions and Aurora Advantage CU. Be sure to check back in as we will be expanding our credit union offerings in the near future!

We hope you enjoy browsing our new website!

Filed Under: Banking Event, Credit Union Event

CSPI Expands Financial Industry Footprint by Acquiring CruiseNet Core®

CSPI Expands Financial Industry Footprint by Acquiring CruiseNet Core®

October 1, 2020 | Press Release

Jefferson City, MO — On Thursday, October 1, 2020 an agreement was reached for Computer Service Professionals, Inc. (CSPI) to acquire the CruiseNet® core solution from Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.®.  The CruiseNet platform is built on a .Net architecture and represents the next generation in core processing systems for small and mid-sized credit unions. CruiseNet offers a superior, cost-efficient operating platform designed to grow as financial institutions grow.

“This is an exciting and notable moment that will allow CSPI and our dedicated team of employees to expand market share and our product offerings within the credit union sector of the financial services industry, while remaining focused on our mission of exceeding expectations for both community banks and now, credit unions,” stated Brad Epple, President and CEO of CSPI.

According to Greg Adelson, Chief Operating Officer of Jack Henry & Associates, “Based on our long-time relationship with CSPI, we believe our similar company cultures and fundamental commitment to client and associate care make CSPI an ideal fit for this transaction and CSPI are fully committed to ensuring this transition will be seamless for CruiseNet clients and their members, and that they receive the same quality of near and long-term service they have received as Jack Henry clients. Transitioning the associates responsible for CruiseNet operations, product development, and client care to CSPI provides a very important component of that seamless client experience. We would like to sincerely thank the associates joining the CSPI team for their past commitment to our company and continued service excellence to our clients. And we welcome the opportunity to continue supporting these credit unions with an array of Jack Henry complementary solutions that are fully integrated with CruiseNet.”

The majority of CruiseNet associates are currently based in Charlotte, North Carolina. CSPI plans to retain all employees and continue to operate the Charlotte office. “Our CSPI leadership is excited to grow our team and plans to incorporate involvement from all levels to ensure this is a smooth transition for both our employees and our customers. We look forward to the opportunity of expanding our solutions and extending our reach to credit unions across the U.S.,” said Kurt Luebbering, Chief Operating Executive of CSPI.

The CruiseNet product will be rebranded as Aurora Advantage CU. CSPI looks forward to introducing their new customer base to the Aurora Online and Aurora Mobile CU digital banking platform in 2021.

About Computer Service Professionals, Inc. (CSPI)

As a valued software and service provider leading the FinTech industry for over 30 years, CSPI focuses on the needs of today’s progressive community banks and credit unions to meet the growing demands of account holders by providing core solutions, digital banking, document management and item processing.

We are core-agnostic and support API-first technology to create real-time integration for our Aurora Advantage product suite. Our dedicated team strives to enhance the user experience, deliver innovative solutions, significantly increase productivity, and provide exceptional service that exceeds client expectations. We believe if our customer succeeds, we succeed.

You can learn more about CSPI and our Aurora Advantage product suite by visiting our website https://www.auroradigitalbanking.com.

Filed Under: Banking Event, Credit Union Event

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