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SHAZAM Advisory Council: Four years in review

The SHAZAM® Advisory Council held its ninth scheduled meeting April 7 – 8 in Des Moines, Iowa, right before the annual SHAZAM Forum. The council is made up of senior staff from our client base of community banks and credit unions. These meetings offer a unique opportunity for SHAZAM to better understand client needs and help institutions reach their goals.

In the April meeting, the SHAZAM team reviewed progress on key roadmap initiatives discussed with SAC members since the inception of the council in 2021. Take a look at the progress we’ve made on each roadmap item below.

Industry evolution and trends

Top priorities identified by SAC members include operational efficiency, data analytics and fraud mitigation. SAC members agreed that speed and convenience needs will drive digital payments, digital and instant issuance and digital wallets. Additionally, members expressed interest in agent and full-service credit card programs.

Progress on related SHAZAM road map initiatives includes:

  • Operational efficiency — new self-service capabilities in SHAZAM Access, EFT integrations with non-SHAZAM cores and Dispute Partner Plus™
  • Data analytics — Business Intelligence Services™
  • Fraud mitigation — adaptive analytics, fraud predictor, case manager and Fraud Advisors™
  • Digital payments — digital wallets, card-based funds transfer solutions, virtual card APIs and instant issuance integrations

Faster payments

Over the past four years, the SHAZAM team has shared faster payments insights, updates and facilitated group discussions on credit receive and send options. In these discussions, SAC members shared their concerns over interchange loss and regulation changes. Most members are still evaluating if they’ll add send capabilities, but several members have added credit receive to their service offering.

Progress on SHAZAM’s faster payments roadmap includes:

  • Engagement with the Faster Payments Council and FedNow®/RTP® pilots
  • Credit receive services — 10 SHAZAM financial institutions are live with FedNow and 13 are live with RTP
  • Middleware integrations
  • Instant send APIs

Digital banking and experience

The SHAZAM team shared digital and mobile insights and held group discussions on related topics. Future roadmap plans on SHAZAM’s digital banking experience include secure attachments, reporting dashboard, card controls, secondary users, alerts, online account opening with Know Your Customer, ACH file upload and biometric authentication.

API and integrations

When it comes to APIs and integrations, the top drivers shared by SAC members include the importance of a unified experience, efficiency and automation, data accessibility, and speed. Pain points identified by SAC members are cost, time, EFT-core data sync, digital experience and vendor willingness. Top integration needs identified by SAC members are card controls, online account opening features integrated with core, digital and core integration, EFT and core integration, and issuance-related integration.

Progress on SHAZAM’s API and integrations roadmap includes:

  • Virtual card, card control, faster payments, travel notices, maintenance, PIN change and activation APIs were launched in our API portal and are currently being used by 200+ clients and 40+ vendors
  • Integrations into SHAZAM Access — instant issuance, ability to print from SHAZAM Access, and Core CIS sync with SHAZAM Access is live
  • New integrations — We continue to pursue additional EFT integrations with non-SHAZAM cores, non-SHAZAM digital banking vendors, and faster payments integrations with non-SHAZAM cores

Operational tracks

For the operational track roadmaps, operational staff from SAC member institutions offered input on a variety of topics including case manager, fraud tools, faster payments fraud, after-hours service and SHAZAM Access.

Overall, operational attendees are satisfied with case manager. Attendees also gave feedback on the design and functionality of SHAZAM Access. Looking ahead, in coming years, SHAZAM is planning a number of updates within SHAZAM Access including user profile improvements, audit reports with user and role definitions, multi-factor authentication and hover-over enhancements.

Cryptocurrency and digital assets

Through SAC member feedback, SHAZAM learned we should ensure EFT facilities have on and off ramps for digital assets. As a result, SHAZAM delivered an enhanced transaction message to include a digital asset indicator for issuer risk management.

Core banking

SAC members provided insight into SHAZAM® Core™ features, functionality and support needs. As a result of the feedback received, SHAZAM is currently working on functionality to support digital banking providers with e-delivery notices including escrow analyses and tax documents.

Client learning and communications

SAC members shared the ideal days to receive emails are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They also expressed interest in a digital email library, on-demand learning and webinars. Supporting this feedback, SHAZAM’s regular client communication schedule is Tuesday – Thursday, not including urgent communications. Client learning launched on-demand, e-learning that is self-paced and self-served. Additionally, client learning added additional webinar topics SAC members expressed interest in, such as fraud.

What’s next?

Read more about what was covered in the April SAC meeting in the fall edition of Magnify.

We truly appreciate the commitment and partnership of SAC members and their institutions’ staff who contribute to the council. The feedback received in these meetings is invaluable and helps us shape our products and services to support our mission of strengthening financial institutions.

If you want to learn more about any of the products and services discussed in this article, please reach out to your client executive. Additionally, if you have any suggested discussion topics for future SAC meetings, please let us know.