Mahalo Banking Participates in Credit Union Industry Build-A-Thon Event

By Denny Howell, Co-Founder, and Chief Operations Officer, Mahalo

In 2022, Mahalo Banking participated in CU Build, an annual competitive build-a-thon event for the Jack Henry Symitar? credit union community. During this event, Mahalo acted as both a sponsor and a participating company on one of the 2022 winning teams. Representing the Mahalo team at CU Build, Ken Kondo CSM, CSPO , Chief Innovation Officer, served as a team developer.

“CU Build offered fintech vendors and credit unions alike an advantageous occasion to experience camaraderie and meet new peers within the industry. Along with gaining industry exposure, Mahalo had the opportunity to be an actively contributing player working and learning alongside other credit union community members on an equal playing field. Overall, it is a fantastic event I would highly recommend to any credit unions and fintech vendors,” said Kondo.

Kondo’s team created an omnichannel donation portal for credit unions that spanned a website, an Episys PowerFrame Docs? for in-branch use, and a mobile app. Connected to Mahalo API and SymXchange?, the team utilized several software platforms to achieve its functionality including Advanced Reporting for Credit Unions? (ARCU), jhaAddress Verify?, SWIVEL?, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Episys PowerFrame Docs?. This solution was built to enable credit unions capable of providing a method for members and non-members to seamlessly make charitable donations in a trackable way, as well as construct configurations to streamline the donation deposit process into charity accounts. This solution was awarded Best Use of AWS and Best Use of SWIVEL? and took second place overall in the entire competition.

CU Build serves as a collaborative event during which credit union professionals compete against one another to build intuitive solutions for the CU industry. Based on the concept of “hack-a-thon” events, CU Build adopts the idea of building solutions in a short timeframe and applies credit union industry principles of cooperation and community focus. Participants are given the opportunity to address common industry challenges and deliver creative resolutions that can effectively enhance the technical maturity of credit unions and the communities they serve.

This annual event is open to a wide variety of individuals within the credit union space who work on the Symitar? core system or whose organizations are part of the Symitar? VIP Program, regardless of whether they have a technical background. This year, the event attracted credit union employees, branch managers, marketing personnel, developers, designers and more. Teams are placed together based on individual skillsets, experience level, and work style.

“The credit union space is known for its ‘people helping people’ philosophy. Yet, before CU Build, there weren’t any events that could offer credit unions the experience of collaboratively creating technology and innovating solutions that other industries provide. This event uniquely provides credit union industry members with the chance to explore new technologies and discover innovative strategies to solve the pressing challenges impacting credit unions today,” said Adele Glenn, MBA of CUTEK, CU Build coordinator.

Over a span of 36.5 hours, teams actively work to create solutions that address CU Build’s rotating theme, this year’s focus being “transformation.” Solutions are judged based on how well they fit the CU Build theme and address the credit union mission focus, as well as the level of innovation, functionality, design, and extensibility. After CU Build solutions are brought to completion by participants, each is made available for free to all Jack Henry credit unions interested in implementing the software.

Mahalo!