There’s nothing more frustrating in the world than helping your mom with a technology problem. As she’s getting older and realizing she no longer wants to drive long distances, she agreed to use Uber to drive her around. So she loaded the Uber app onto her phone. Or so she thought. It turns out Uber was too advanced for her alleged smartphone. Now she has to drive herself to the local mall, walk into that big glass-enclosed store with the Apple over the doors, and buy an upgraded phone. She’s frustrated because the Uber app didn’t work on her existing phone and has to pay hundreds of dollars for a new phone.
Obviously, her son, in this case yours truly, has to be sensitive to Mom’s frustrations. However, change is all around us and happens at an increasingly fast pace. This pace is too much for many of us to handle. I advised Mom to manage the change she can handle and ignore the rest of it.
I’m also sensitive to the changes our Credit Union has made over the past few months. For many of you, the only change will be our name change on checks and your monthly statements. But for those who have ventured deep into our technological services, you have noticed a major change to our online banking system, @ccessOnline. Some have been frustrated with the new login procedures requiring a user name that cannot be an account number and a more complex password. Most people who log into their favorite website or use a smartphone or tablet have experienced upgrades.
We don’t make changes for the sake of making changes. At the same time, we follow all federal and state credit union laws. Unfortunately, the federal government is becoming a larger part of the operations of all financial institutions as a result of the unethical and fraudulent behavior of the largest banks in the country. Our regulators now require more stringent online banking procedures to protect member data. Their heart is certainly in the right place. Our most important objective is to keep your confidential financial data safe. It’s getting more difficult and entails the Credit Union purchasing more security equipment as well as implementing some controls at the user’s end that make all of our lives a little more difficult.
While the security was tightened, we made the interface more intuitive and added services, for instance making address changes online and adding flexibility in the account history. We all have to take the good with the not-so-good, and this is one of those times. All I can advise is manage the change you can handle and ignore the rest of it. Mom is much more relaxed.