By Adrian Moise, CEO of Aequilibrium
In Brief: Digital Experience Starts at the Edge
- Digital experience begins before login: Your website and CRM are the starting points of the member journey — not your DBP.
- Disconnected systems create a bumpy ride: Like a car with misaligned parts, fragmentation across CMS, CRM, and DBP frustrates members and staff.
- Forge migration is a strategic inflection point: It’s not just a backend swap — it’s a chance to rethink your full digital foundation for the next decade.
- Assess with AEQ's 4 lenses: Business, Experience, Technology, and Governance for full risk/cost clarity.
- Plan for integration, not just replacement: A composable strategy across CMS, CRM, and DBP enables agility, personalization, and long-term growth.
The Real Member Experience Begins Way Before Login
When we talk about Forge migration, the conversation almost always focuses on the digital banking platform (DBP). It’s where members log in to check balances, move money, and pay bills, so it feels natural to treat it as the center of the digital universe.
But focusing only on the DBP is like upgrading your car’s engine while ignoring the wheels, dashboard, and navigation system. Sure, the engine powers the vehicle — but it’s the entire driving experience that determines where the members go and how smoothly they get there.
The real member experience begins much earlier than login – at the edge, like on your website, through your customer relationship management (CRM), or in response to a campaign.
If those touchpoints don’t connect seamlessly with your new DBP, members will feel the friction, staff will struggle with inefficiencies, and your organization will fall behind in personalization and growth.
In other words, just like if your engine and the rest of your car are out of alignment, passengers and the pit crew alike will suffer through a bumpy ride.
Why the Edge Matters
Your website and CRM are often the very first points of contact for prospective members.
Think of them as the steering wheel and dashboard of a digital vehicle. They’re how people find and engage with you, to take your credit union for a test drive, and how your team navigates their relationship with each member.
Members don’t start with your mobile app where your DBP makes its appearance; they often start on Google, your site, or in response to an ad. That first impression is often shaped by your content management system (CMS). From there, the experience flows into your CRM, where interactions and data should guide how you serve them.
When CMS, CRM, and DBP are disconnected, you create fragmented roadtrips and a clunky ride:Offers that don’t align with actual member needs
Onboarding that requires re-keying data
Staff bogged down with manual reconciliations instead of adding value
The result? Lost opportunities for growth, higher staff frustration, and a disjointed member experience that competitors will happily exploit to get ahead in the fast lane.
It’s Not Just About Members, it’s About Your Staff
Disconnection doesn’t just show up in your users’ Net Promoter Score (NPS); it shows up in your culture. Staff end up acting as “human middleware,” constantly bridging gaps between systems.
Marketing teams wait on IT to launch or update campaigns
Front-line staff can’t see the full picture of a member’s relationship
IT is stretched thin managing fragile integrations
It’s like asking your pit crew to optimize a car made of mismatched parts that were thrown together – inefficient, stressful, and unsustainable.
By contrast, an integrated digital foundation gives your people the tools to succeed with a carefully crafted vehicle:
Real-time insights to better serve members
Campaign agility for marketing teams
A simplified architecture to reduce IT overhead
This isn’t only about technology; it’s a workforce transformation by empowering your teams to work smarter, not harder.
A Foundation for the Next 10 Years
The Forge sunset isn’t just an IT project, it’s a once-in-a-decade opportunity to rethink your entire digital strategy.
You can either scramble into a like-for-like DBP replacement in 2026 like a rushed engine replacement or use this moment to build a digital foundation for the next 10 years for a car ready for the road ahead.
That means:
Selecting a modern DBP that fits your long-term strategy
Pairing it with the right CMS (WordPress, Optimizely) and CRM (Dynamics, Creatio)
Building analytics, automation, and AI into the core, not bolted on later
Future-proofing isn’t about chasing shiny features; it’s about ensuring your entire stack works together to adapt, scale, and personalize over the decade ahead as member expectations evolve.
A Well-Orchestrated Approach
At Aequilibrium, we believe Forge migration is not just a platform swap for Canadian credit unions. It’s a strategic inflection point – a chance to simplify, unify, and elevate your digital experience.
That means designing an integrated digital presence in which your DBP, CMS, and CRM reinforce each other and work as an engine that drives consistent, data-driven member journeys.
The credit unions that lead in 2030 won’t be the ones who merely treat this as a compliance project to “replace Forge.” This thinking will inevitably lock them into yesterday’s limitations, fighting fires instead of building futures.
The winners will be the ones who planned beyond the DBP and built a simpler, smarter, more connected foundation for members and staff alike.
And so, when your Board asks, “What’s our Forge migration plan?”, don’t answer with a platform name. Answer with a strategy that connects your DBP, CMS, and CRM into a roadmap for the next decade.
Ready to build that roadmap?
Let’s start with a strategy session
Schedule a 30-minute call with our experts to map your Forge migration to a future-ready stack — DBP, CRM, CMS, and more.
