Results at a glance
Increase in checking account adoption among indirect members
Lift in digital banking enrollment for indirect members
Faster time to digital banking registration for indirect members
In annualized deposits from direct deposit switches from all members
The challenge
Indirect lending brought in members. It didn’t bring them into the relationship.
Indirect auto lending is one of the most efficient ways a credit union can grow its membership. It is also one of the hardest channels to convert. Members first interact with a dealer’s finance manager, not the credit union, and their loyalty often stays with the car rather than the institution that financed it.
Communication FCU’s onboarding for these members followed the industry playbook: a welcome email and a mailed welcome packet. It worked for some members. But fewer than half of indirect members enrolled in digital banking, and those who did took, on average, more than two weeks to register.
A member who never logs in can’t see a payment reminder, a deposit offer, or a reason to move their paycheck. Without digital engagement, an indirect loan risks becoming a single-product relationship that ends the day the car is paid off.
The solution
A guided onboarding journey built for indirect members.
Communication FCU partnered with Swaystack to launch a dedicated digital onboarding journey for indirect members. Instead of handing new borrowers a packet and hoping they followed through, the journey walked them step by step through the actions that turn a loan into a relationship:
- Enrolling and registering in digital banking
- Setting up loan payments and alerts
- Exploring the products and services relevant to them as a new member
Each step used plain, encouraging language, with progress the member could see. That gave indirect members a clear introduction to a credit union they had joined almost by accident, and a reason to come back.
The impact
More checking accounts. Higher digital engagement. Broader deposit growth.
More borrowers opening checking accounts. Communication FCU combined a renewed focus on deepening indirect member relationships with digital account opening and guided onboarding through Swaystack. Together, these efforts helped increase the share of indirect borrowers opening a checking account by more than 75%.
Digital enrollment, lifted. 60% of indirect members onboarded through Swaystack enrolled in digital banking, compared with 47% under the traditional email and mailed welcome packet approach. That is a 25%+ lift in enrollment compared with the traditional onboarding approach.
Registration in days, not weeks. Indirect members onboarded through Swaystack registered in an average of 10.23 days, versus 16.42 days under the traditional approach. Cutting registration time by 37.7% means members reach their account, payment tools, and offers when they are most likely to act.
Broader deposit impact across the membership. Beyond indirect member onboarding, Communication FCU used Swaystack to guide members toward switching their direct deposit. Across the membership, these switches represented $5M+ in annualized deposits.
As Swaystack Co-Founder and CEO Har Rai Khalsa put it: “Indirect members are some of the most overlooked relationships in a credit union’s portfolio. They’ve already said yes to a loan. Communication FCU proved that with the right first experience, that yes can turn into digital engagement and a primary banking relationship.”