Utah-based credit union streamlines member onboarding workflow by over 50% combining NoSQL document storage with high availability delivered by MySQL Enterprise Edition.
Introduction & Background
America First Credit Union (AFCU), founded in 1939, is a member-owned, not-for-profit cooperative financial institution based in Utah, with operations across that state, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and California. AFCU is the fifth largest credit union in membership in the United States with more than 1.3 million members.
First reflects the credit union’s fundamental commitment to putting members’ financial needs at the forefront of all efforts. Its goal is to educate them about sensible money management to help improve their fiscal condition. One of its OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) is membership growth.
Business Challenges & Goals
To become members, applicants must provide documents to verify their eligibility under federal guidelines. However, the organization needed technological assistance to manage the membership process. Its public-facing application required upgrades to upload and store the unstructured nature of document data.
The back-end database suffered frequent downtime and was deemed by top management to be difficult. Users were abandoning the workflow. The credit union’s new president and CEO called for redevelopment of its critical membership application. They required implementing a dynamic solution capable of handling multiple different types of documents, with high availability and security.
Business Results & Metrics
MySQL Enterprise Edition enabled AFCU to provide a superior user experience for individuals applying for membership through document identity.
By leveraging MySQL Document Store, AFCU simplified the application process, slashing the number of steps and page views per user by over 50%. The revamped document uploading process saved 84,850 unnecessary page hits per month. Overall time spent in the workflow dropped by 11% and membership grew by almost 1,000 applications per month.
MySQL Document Store, acting as a NoSQL data repository for schema-less, JSON data type documents, has resulted in unrestricted storage and query of any membership documents. In parallel, AFCU has gained the high availability and superior performance of Oracle and MySQL relational database structures.
The solution increased availability to nearly 100% uptime, available 24/7, with no moment of downtime. “MySQL Enterprise runs flawlessly, with no complaints from users. That has allowed the team to breathe and plan future projects with no more firefighting,” commented Kyle Kawaguchi, Senior Database Administrator.
High availability and security are further strengthened by leveraging MySQL InnoDB Cluster group replication in the form of a disaster recovery site 30 miles south of the company’s headquarters. Protection of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is guaranteed through MySQL Enterprise Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), encrypting data in real time for new members and also for applicants who ultimately do not join the credit union. In addition, TDE allows AFCU to comply with rigorous auditing by financial governance bodies such as the National Credit Union National Administration (NCUA), which counts 137 million members.
Data collected from members has facilitated the analysis of products and services for future upsell, contributing to a smoother member experience. The dual access MySQL solution allows for NoSQL storage of unstructured documents, along with SQL querying and analysis using MySQL reporting tools for centralized access to all data sources.
Member satisfaction has risen through AFCU’s fine-tuning of personalized interaction based on information and feedback gathered during the application and onboarding experience.
Implementing MySQL Enterprise Edition brought the additional benefit of natively connecting key applications with no need to write interfaces. The new platform now supports Grafana for visualizing metrics, Airflow as the DevOps workflow platform, and the credit union’s vehicle repossession solution. “We discovered that many of our current applications had been written to natively integrate with MySQL Enterprise Edition, resulting in welcome added value to our investment,” noted Brandon Mason.
Underpinning the successful implementation is Oracle Premium Support, assisting in the smooth delivery of an always-up member experience.
Why MySQL Enterprise Edition?
AFCU had been using Oracle Database for many years as its preferred platform for new development. However, it did not find the NoSQL document storage features it sought in Oracle. The organization then turned to MySQL Enterprise Edition.
Furthermore, AFCU needed support in rebuilding and running its membership application. Having worked with Oracle for many years, it knew and trusted the support that was available, vital for relaunching, maintaining, and expanding its critical solution driving membership growth.
Next Steps
“As we implement new applications and systems, we very much expect MySQL to be part of our future. We’re very happy to have chosen MySQL Enterprise Edition, which is getting white glove treatment from our DBAs and keeping our users happy as well,” concluded Mason.