Boeing Employees´ Credit Union: leveraging the data warehousing investment

The Boeing Employee Credit Union (BECU) has been providing financial assistance to employees since 1935. By 1938, membership had grown to 850 members. During the 1990s, BECU grew from 150,000 members with 362,000 accounts to 260,000 members with 1,170,174 accounts. BECU is the largest financial cooperative in Washington State and the third largest credit union in the USA. Without significant investments in information technology, however, it would be impossible for BECU to deliver personalized services to its members. The idea of creating a member-centric information systems capability was first expressed in May 1999. Today, the data warehouse has resulted in many benefits, including plans to leverage the $2 million investment by providing three distinct types of service: (1) checking, savings, loans, individual retirement arrangements and certificate-of-deposit data; (2) mortgage and credit data; and (3) financial services data. This case study details these three types of service, the impact of each service on BECU´s performance and the future directions and lessons learned from the project.