Arise Financial, formerly Rockland Federal Credit Union, is working on modernization and scale under its new name. 

The new name took effect on Aug. 1 and represents a tech-forward path, the opportunity to grow and a differentiation from competitors, Chief Information Officer Mark Federico told FinAi News.

The Arise strategy is led by Chief Executive Kris VanBeek, Federico said, adding VanBeek brought a tech background to the job, which he started in 2023. 

“Kris is a very innovative CEO,” Federico said. 

For example, under VanBeek the credit union completed a core conversion to Corelation KeyStone in August 2025 from FIS Miser, Erica Potter, senior vice president of deposit and payment operations at Arise, told FinAi News. That has laid the foundation for modernization across the institution. 

Vendor partnerships in the works today, for example, couldn’t have been integrated with Arise’s old core, she said. 

Vendors the $3.5 billion credit union have recently integrated into the new core include: 

• Akuvo collections platform; 

• Lumin online banking provider; and 

• Glide online account opening provider for deposits and loans.  

“There’s a lot of API possibility” with Corelation Keystone, Potter said. 

Buy versus build

While Arise’s new core allows it to plug in the latest technology, buying tech exclusively is not its only strategy — Arise is also building AI in-house, Greg Parker, senior vice president of enterprise analytics and AI, told FinAi News. 

It’s the age-old question of buy versus build.  

For Arise, it’s determining cost, capability, time to market and expertise, Federico said. 

Sometimes it’s more efficient to let a vendor take the lead on projects in areas where it has vast knowledge. Other times “there are certain things that are easier for us to do in terms of [knowing] our data,” he said.  

“We know our system, we know our data better than some of these third parties do,” Federico said. 

That’s where vendor management comes in, Parker said. When selecting partners, AI roadmaps, functionality and three- to five-year plans need to be discussed. 

“Can we have an understanding of how they are approaching [AI] from a similar mentality as us,” Parker said. 

Akuvo, for example, has more knowledge in the collections space, Federico said. That’s not to say Arise couldn’t build these functions in-house, but it would take a lot of time and resources. 

“It may take us five or six months [to build], but if they can give us the product within a month or two … we could be in a much better place,” Federico said. 

Opportunity to learn

Building in-house also gives the credit union an opportunity to learn — through wins and failures, Parker said. 

“Sometimes we’re going to try to build things or try to create some efficiencies that aren’t going to land, but part of that is what we’ll learn from it for the next effort,” Parker said.  

Register here for the FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas. This inaugural event will include speakers from Fifth Third and Capital One as well as a fireside chat with Piermont Bank founder and Chief Executive Wendy Cai-Lee.