Great Lakes Credit Union (GLCU) shared its experience on artificial intelligence (AI) applications in financial services during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on 23 July. The hearing explored the impact, risks, and uses of generative AI in the financial services and housing sectors.
Headquartered in Northern Illinois, the credit union was selected to represent the sector’s point of view by apex America’s Credit Unions.
During the hearing, GLCU’s COO, Elizabeth Osborne, explained how her credit union is using AI to better serve its members, arguing this can be an option for other credit unions, which, she said, tend to have fewer resources and assets compared to large financial institutions.
She added that by using Olive, an AI-powered virtual assistant, the credit union can handle over 60% of total inbound calls to its member contact centre during business hours and 75% of all calls after business hours. Before using AI, GLCU dealt with customers via telephone banking, through which it had a 25% handling rate.
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According to Osborne, calls fully serviced by Olive have increased more than 200% since its launch in August 2023, which has created more career opportunities and a higher pay grade for member contact centre staff.
“AI is an important tool for credit unions,” Osborne said. “It helps us to enhance service to our members and provides services that economies of scale may not otherwise allow us to do. At GLCU, Olive is a strategic partner that helps us fulfil the underlying mission of the credit union. Our use of Olive is a prime example of how credit unions can effectively deploy the use of AI to improve the lives of our members.
Osborne argued that credit unions will need to have access to AI technologies to successfully compete with larger financial institutions and non-bank financial technology (fintech) firms. GLCU is already exploring other AI technologies, including Microsoft Power Automate, which can be used to automate repetitive, manual tasks, saving time and resources, reducing errors and delays, and increasing productivity and accuracy.
“As policymakers grapple to legislate and regulate in this emerging environment, it is important to recognise many existing laws are technology agnostic and still apply,” Osborne pointed out that. “As with other technologies, consumer financial protections and anti-discrimination rules continue to have broad applicability, whether the decision making is human or AI. Existing regulation requires credit unions to adopt world best practices to ensure that new technology does not jeopardise safety or the rights of individual members. It is encouraging to see recognition of the broad applicability of existing fair lending and consumer financial protection laws in the bipartisan working group report.”
Osborne explained that AI usage at credit unions generally falls into three categories: underwriting support, combating fraud and customer service. GLCU is focusing on the latter and plans to upgrade Olive to speak Spanish to better serve its Spanish speaking members, which represent a large percentage of the GLC membership base.
“Credit unions like mine are committed to using AI safely, securely, and with the goal of helping members meet their financial needs,” she said. “AI enables credit unions to compete more efficiently with larger banks and non-bank companies in the financial services arena. AI has not altered credit unions’ historical role as relationship lenders committed to maintaining a close bond with the communities they serve.
The full recording can be watched here.
This article has been amended. An earlier version described Elizabeth Osborne as the CEO of GLCU.
