A recent overhaul to Washington State Employees Credit Union’s IT teams has positioned it to accelerate its product development, even as the credit union pivots its digital product roadmap in light of the coronavirus-induced downturn.

“We’ve refocused our priorities so they’re different coming on the outside of this coronavirus than they were going into it, and that’s primarily based on what we see the economy looking like,” said Ryan Brooks, vice president of digital acquisition systems. “We’re trying to streamline things that are going to help our members through an economic downturn.”

The Olympia, Wash.-based credit union, which has north of $3 billion in assets and more than 270,000 members, is building products for its digital channels so members can access the same information and services typically available at branches or online.

One product now in the works is a digital loan-modification portal, which offers members the option to refinance loans or request forbearance online, rather than calling or visiting a branch. The minimum viable product is slated to launch in three to four weeks on mobile and online, Brooks said, noting that the credit union will continue to roll out other educational and guidance features to the platform. “Our goal is to get this out so the members can at least start utilizing it in the form of raising their hand and asking for help digitally,” he said.

Organizational shuffling and a shift in methodology last year enabled WSECU to launch products at a much faster clip, producing a new product pipeline that expedited solutions focused on member cashflow, Brooks said. WSECU, which has more than 700 employees, organized its development team into four cross-functional groups to be deployed to high-priority projects geared toward helping members amid the pandemic.

With the cross-functional teams, the credit union was able to build an emergency loan workflow into its digital-lending platform to provide members impacted by COVID-19 with a streamlined loan application. The emergency loan workflow follows the same user interface framework used for other consumer loans and took about three weeks to develop and launch, Brooks noted. In total, WSECU completed more than 20 new features in the past eight weeks, including adjusting ATM limits and external transfer limits for members.

“The cross-functional teams are just so productive — they took on smaller items but have had just a huge gain in how the members interacted with WSECU,” Brooks said. “It’s really broken down into sprints, and everybody is always working on that team and they commit to what they’re going to complete in that two-week time, and that really helps break the work down into smaller chunks.”