NCUCA 2026: Key Takeaways
West Coast Consulting Group was a proud sponsor of NCUCA 2026 in Las Vegas, where we presented CloudCollect, our collections automation application. Here are our key takeaways.
As NCUCA President Art Sookazian noted in his keynote, credit unions are experiencing the highest delinquency rates since 2012. Against that backdrop, one theme came through clearly across sessions, roundtables, and booth conversations: AI is rapidly moving from concept to expectation in collections.
The Shift Away from Reactive Models
The most significant change underway is the move away from traditional, reactive models built around days-past-due thresholds. These models were designed for a manual world and are increasingly seen as too slow. Industry benchmarks suggest that engaging members before accounts reach 30 days past due can improve cure rates by two to three times. The earliest days of delinquency often determine the outcome.
AI is helping operationalize this shift by enabling earlier signals, dynamic prioritization, and more consistent outreach. When engagement happens quickly and consistently, recovery rates are significantly higher. When it doesn’t, accounts roll forward into stages where resolution becomes more complex and costly.
Member Experience Is Core to Collections
Member experience is taking on a more central role in collections strategy. Collections teams understand that how a credit union handles a difficult conversation directly impacts long-term member relationships. Discussions at NCUCA increasingly focused on communicating with members in ways that are respectful, transparent, and aligned with credit union values. Members expect timely, personalized outreach and clear resolution options. AI is becoming a meaningful tool here, helping tailor communication, timing, and channel selection at scale.
Automation Is Becoming Essential to Scale
Operational pressure was another persistent theme. Many collections teams are managing increasing complexity with limited resources. As portfolios grow and compliance requirements expand, manual workflows are becoming harder to sustain.
Across sessions and vendor conversations, a consistent picture emerged: 60 to 80 percent of collections activity remains manual. Collectors often spend half their time on administrative work rather than direct member engagement, toggling between core systems, spreadsheets, and call logs just to understand the state of an account before a conversation even begins.
That said, most organizations are not yet positioned to take advantage of AI. Without structured workflows, centralized data, and consistent processes, AI cannot deliver meaningful value. When those elements are in place, automation can fundamentally change how collections teams operate, freeing up capacity while improving both consistency and outcomes.
Modernizing Around the Core
Underlying many of these challenges is the role of the core system. Most credit unions rely on platforms like Symitar as their system of record, but few see these platforms as sufficient for modern collections operations. Teams describe environments where collectors navigate multiple screens, spreadsheets, and manual notes just to get a complete picture before making a call.
The path forward is not replacing the core. It is building a workflow, automation, and intelligence layer on top of it. This is also where AI capabilities will increasingly live, acting on structured data and orchestrated workflows to give collectors a complete view of the member and the ability to act quickly and consistently.
Looking Ahead
Taken together, these themes point to a meaningful transition for credit unions. The future collections teams are working toward is proactive rather than reactive, operationally efficient, member-centric, and increasingly automated. NCUCA 2026 made clear that the ambition to change is not the constraint. Credit unions understand where collections need to go. The challenge is execution: moving from discussion to implementation, and from incremental improvement to a modern, data-driven operating model.
West Coast Consulting Group is here to help credit unions make that shift. CloudCollect, our collections management solution, provides the structured workflows, centralized member data, and automation layer that modern collections teams need. Whether you are starting that journey or accelerating it, contact us today to let us help you build the foundation required for the AI era.
