PSCU Announces KnockOut 2016 Finalists

Final round of voting underway to determine winner of fifth annual competition

St. Petersburg, Fla. – (Sept. 27, 2016) – PSCU – the nation’s leading CUSO – has announced the finalists of KnockOut 2016, a 24-hour competitive summit. More than two hundred participants came together earlier this month during KnockOut with a goal of collaborating to help solve a problem in the payments industry that will allow credit unions to better serve their members. Ideas from the three finalists will now move to open voting to determine this year’s winning idea.

The finalists and their ideas are:

Team BECU (BECU; Tukwila, Wash.) – Single payments hub that simplifies the payment process and adds the ability for members to use credit cards to pay bills in the existing bill pay platform
Team Pineapple (PSCU; St. Petersburg, Fla.) – One-of-a-kind intelligent platform API that would be integrated into various PSCU platforms to hold a “spot” in the call queue without requiring a member to call in
Team Cajun Power (University of Louisiana FCU; Lafayette, La.) – Instant online loan decisioning and funding tool that allows immediate deposits into a member’s checking or savings account

“This year’s KnockOut competition was stiff. Every team was ‘in it to win it’ and focused on developing an idea that would benefit the credit union industry and members across the country,” said Chuck Fagan, President and CEO of PSCU. “We saw firsthand how the collaboration, focus and determination that KnockOut encourages allows for the best ideas to rise to the top.”

KnockOut was held at PSCU’s St. Petersburg, Fla. headquarters and Member-Owner HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union’s campus in Honolulu, Hawaii. The 18 participating teams were each made up of five members that included PSCU and credit union employees.

A panel of judges comprised of representatives from PSCU, Apple, Projekt 202, First Data, CFE Federal Credit Union, Oceanit and the Hawaii CU League evaluated the teams’ concept submissions and selected five semi-finalists. These semi-finalists then advanced to the second round of judging, the TKO round, allowing PSCU’s product management team to review and score the KnockOut ideas and narrow it down to three finalists. Voting for the three finalists ends at 11:59 p.m. EST on September 29, and the winner will be announced on September 30.

About PSCU

Established in 1977, PSCU (St. Petersburg, Fla.) is the nation's leading credit union service organization (CUSO) and was awarded CUSO of the Year recognition by NACUSO. The cooperative is owned by over 800 member credit unions representing more than 18.9 million credit, debit, prepaid, online bill payment and mobile accounts. Comprehensive 24/7/365 member support is delivered through contact centers located throughout the United States. For more information, visit www.pscu.com.