Credit Union West

Creating efficiencies in financial analytics with Zest AI’s LuLu

Discover how CU West streamlined analytics, improved reporting accuracy, and enhanced member service with Zest AI’s LuLu, a GenAI data aggregation and insights platform.

The zest AI effect

time savings due to a reduction in the time spent developing analytics reports

month saved annually in creating peer analytic reports

departments using LuLu for analysis in areas from marketing to finance to operations and beyond

At a glance

Problem

CU West's financial analysts were spending hours manually pulling data from multiple sources just to compile peer reports, leaving little time for the strategic analysis that actually drives business decisions.

SOLUTION

CU West adopted Zest AI's LuLu platform to automate data aggregation and visualization, eventually expanding access to over 10 departments across the organization to support everything from marketing to financial operations.

RESULTS

Tasks that previously took three hours are now completed in 10 minutes, freeing analysts to focus on higher-value work, with further potential identified in deposit analysis, product insights, and transactional trend reporting.

A financial analyst’s job is never done. As leaders in identifying key trends, monitoring for customer/member shifts, and uncovering new opportunities, their role contributes greatly to a financial institution’s (FI’s) success. But, assembling disparate data points—even within their own institution—can be a laborious task that requires hours of manual input.

Until now.

“Zest AI’s LuLu platform has saved us countless hours compiling data for comprehensive peer reports. In the past, we had to manually collect that data from multiple sources and consolidate them into one report,” explained Kinnidy Abitz, Financial Analyst, Credit Union (CU) West. “Now we can request all those desired data points and receive them already structured and compiled according to our reporting needs.”

Abitz shared that by utilizing LuLu data aggregation and visualization, tasks that used to take three hours are now completed in a mere 10 minutes, freeing up her time to focus on the more strategic areas of analytics.

“Our biggest success since engaging with Zest AI has been achieving greater overall efficiency and expanding the possibilities of what we can do with data collection and reporting right at our fingertips,” she shared.

Growing potential

While Abitz predominantly applies LuLu to peer analytics today, she sees the full potential for LuLu in enhancing and expanding their assessment of their deposit opportunities.

“I see a lot of potential for deposit analysis through LuLu in the future, including more detailed product insights, transactional trends, and deposit rate comparisons,” she noted. “Those features would help us stay in tune with industry offerings and member behavior.”

In addition, while Abitz uses LuLu for one area of data analysis, CU West has upwards of 10 departments on the platform, taking advantage of its full potential. From assessing product engagement for targeted marketing outreach to identifying efficiencies in operations to enhancing financial operations, CU West has uncovered numerous possibilities for LuLu’s focused generative AI (GenAI) insights.

“We use Zest AI underwriting on the consumer lending side, and our CFO saw the opportunity in LuLu for financial analytics and beyond, so we brought it in-house to see what it could do. It’s far exceeded our expectations,” Abitz explained.

Strengthening member service

Above all, CU West seeks out ways to better serve its members. With LuLu, they have a tool in place to drive efficiency, accuracy, and proficiency in reporting and analysis—which ultimately leads to identifying new opportunities to support their members.

“As a credit union, our goal is always to serve our members’ best interests,” Abitz summed up. “Zest AI is helping us do that by giving us the tools and the insights we need to make smarter, data-driven decisions that support member success.”

And as their member needs grow and evolve, the CU West team has confidence that Zest AI and LuLu will be right there to support them in their journey.

“We see Zest AI as an extension of our team,” concluded Abitz. “They are a huge value-add for the credit union and our members, and we are looking forward to continuing to collaborate in new ways.”