- Three credit unions – VyStar CU, BCU, and Reseda Group – have invested in credit risk management specialist AKUVO.
- Terms of the funding were not disclosed.
- The new capital will help AKUVO further develop its credit risk and delinquency management platform, Aperture.
Credit risk and delinquency management specialist AKUVO announced a new investment not from the world of venture capital, but from the land of membership-powered credit unions. The amount of the investment was not disclosed, but the names of the credit unions involved in the funding have been: VyStar Credit Union, BCU, and Reseda Group, a wholly-owned CUSO (credit union service organization) of Michigan State University Federal Credit Union (MSUFCU).
The funding will enable AKUVO to further develop its collection and credit risk platform, Aperture. The cloud-based, API-enabled portfolio risk and delinquency management solution provides streamlined information for quick and easy research and leverages robotic processing to offer businesses a 20% improvement in collector efficiency, a 15% reduction of effort for speciality processes, a 10% reduction in collection workload, and a 10% increase in manager efficiency.
“Our goal is to empower members to discover financial freedom, and I am optimistic AKUVO’s data science solutions will help us accelerate our ability to do just that,” BCU EVP and COO Jim Block said. “We anticipate rapid growth over the next decade, and the Aperture platform has the promise to scale with our membership.”
With $5.5 billion in assets, BCU is based in Vernon Hills, Illinois, in the greater Chicago area. BCU is the smallest (by assets) of the three credit unions involved in AKUVO’s funding this week. Reseda Group is part of $6.8 billion MSUFCU and this investment represents the second time the institution has invested in AKUVO (the first being in January of this year).
“AKUVO’s Aperture platform will change the way we provide members with individual credit solutions that maximize recoveries,” MSUFCU Chief Risk Officer Jim Hunsanger said. “Aperture’s data-based decisioning also ensures we meet regulatory and legal requirements. We’re excited to be an AKUVO client and early investor.”
VyStar Credit Union, based in Jacksonville, Florida, has $12 billion in assets, and is one of the 15 largest credit unions in the country. Speaking on behalf of the firm, VyStar’s SVP of Loan Administration Eric Weatherly said that the investment in AKUVO will “allow us to be a greater force for change for our members and the credit union community.”
Courtesy of the investment, each of the three credit unions involved will have a representative on AKUVO’s board of directors. Headquartered in Pennsylvania, AKUVO was founded in 2019.