JP Kelly sat down with Peter Benjamin at an ACUMA Fast Track to unpack MeridianLink’s recent initiatives to assist Credit Unions. Here is a transcript of what he had to say.
Peter Benjamin from ACUMA (PB): Congratulations on the acquisition of OpenClose, a company you founded over 20 years ago. How has the transition been going?
JP Kelly, SVP of Mortgage at MeridianLink (JPK): I guess the first aspect is it’s the first time in 25 years I now have a boss, so that’s a little bit of change, but it’s been great so far, for me and our team the transition has been going extraordinarily well. Even though MedianLink was a much bigger company and I didn’t know exactly what we were in store in joining a much bigger group. It’s a great fit culturally. The culture of MeridianLink is one where they had a strong entrepreneurial spirit, which has been really exciting for myself and the team.
PB: Walk us through your new role?
JP: My new role is the SVP of Mortgage. Essentially what I’m doing in that new role is leading the strategy for the mortgage business, which includes both the MeridianLink Mortgage products as well as the OpenClose LOS products.
PB: What are the immediate improvements that you are your customers are seeing?
JP: As far as the immediate improvements that we’re seeing, that I’m excited about, is now we are able to really leverage the concept of scale in being a part of a much larger organization, which will allow us to have the resources we need to bring more innovation to our credit union customers and work with the other MeridianLink products that we have to create higher levels of efficiencies across all of the credit union business channels. So that’s a real exciting factor that I’ve been focused on.
With OpenClose, MeridianLink ushers in a “new lending technology era”
PB: With the acquisition – the press release said that MeridianLink Mortgage and OpenClose will usher in a new lending technology era that will better serve credit union customers and the mortgage industry. Can you provide us with an example of that, please?
JP: Sure! In the short term, one of the biggest changes for the MeridianLink Mortgage customers is they’re going to be able to take advantage of the OpenClose Point-of-Sale (POS) system that we had. We’re calling that product MeridianLink Access. We’re in the process of integrating that now to the MeridianLink Mortgage products. In fact, our first customers are going to pilot on that shortly, so that will be happening here soon.
The new POS, again, Meridian Link Access, will greatly enhance and streamline the application process for our credit union members. For the OpenClose customers, we’re going to be integrating MeridianLink’s Product + Pricing Engine (PPE), which is called PriceMyLoan. That’s going to bring a significant amount of pricing enhancements over what the OpenClose customers have today. We recently demonstrated that on roughly a dozen of our OpenClose customers, and people have been so excited about it, we’ve had tremendously positive feedback on it.
MeridianLink One is efficient and cost-effective
PB: How is MeridianLink leading the way for their customers to enhance efficiencies and reduce costs?
JP: Efficiencies and reducing costs are more important than ever, obviously with the change in where the market is today. The two key areas we are really focusing on is, the first is the user experience, with the goal of providing a frictionless experience for your members. Our new point-of-sale system is our foundation for that modernization of the user experience, which is going to allow the members to effortlessly complete a loan application, in many cases, pre-populate the data if they’ve applied for loans in the credit union that you might have in other MeridianLink systems. They can submit conditions on their loans, they can check pricing, and at any time, 24/7, they can check the real-time status on their loan.
The second is connectivity. At MeridianLink we have several products – not just mortgage products – that serve our credit unions from account opening, car lending, consumer lending, small business, and mortgage, just to name a few. We’ve created the MeridianLink One Vision, where we’re focusing on creating connectivity, or what we like to call “connective tissue,” across all our various product lines. That’s going to allow our credit union customers and the members the ability to interact in a much more efficient manner. To have “connective tissue” between those applications is powerful, because your members and your team don’t have to waste time re-entering data, seeing what other loans they might have in with the credit of that same data over and over across those disparate systems. It brings it all under one umbrella, so to speak.
MeridianLink is dedicated to improving the competitive advantage for Credit Unions
PB: Are you doing anything specific for credit unions clients to gain competitive advantages, you know, improve their nationwide network or other suggestions for their future roadmap?
JP: Definitely! Beyond what I mentioned in regards to our MeridianLink One Vision, we spend a lot of time emphasizing connecting our credit union customers both virtually and in-person. One thing I’ve noticed over the years with OpenClose and obviously everyone at MeridianLink knows because they have such a strong footprint in the credit union spaces – I love how credit unions interact with each other, it’s different than a lot of other companies in the industry! As you know, Peter, Credit Unions love to share ideas and figure out how to do things more efficiently with the ultimate goal and focus on how best to help their members.
At MeridianLink Mortgage, we hold virtual quarterly meetings with our credit union customers and we like to get together to discuss market trends, the roadmap items that we’re pursuing, hear about key areas that our customers would like us to focus on, and it’s a great forum for them to interact and network together. We even see online after those meetings and throughout the months where the credit unions, they’ll ask each other questions, they’ll be on their own, ‘Hey what’s the best way to do this?’ or ‘What’s the best way to configure the system to do that?’ It’s a great forum that allows credit union customers to share information.
We also host in-person user forums, which is open to all of Meridian Link customers. It’s a great venue to interact with MeridianLink team members who they talk to on the phone all the time, meet new people, as well as, interact with other our credit union customers. In fact, our next forum is in early May. It’s right around the corner, and it’s at Disneyland. So, anybody who’s listening who hasn’t signed up for that, check it out on our MeridianLink website. You can register for that conference.
To register for MeridianLink Live! visit www.OpenClose.com/MeridianLink-LIVE.