There is an active market for vendor software, as indicated by the other replies. The real expense driver isn't necessarily that "you need an app" but that "you

There is an active market for vendor software, as indicated by the other replies. The real expense driver isn't necessarily that "you need an app" but that "you need an app that is either very hardened or safely quarantined from your core infrastructure". And more generally, yeah the front-end stuff is kinda crappy, but it's because the back-end has to connect to a bunch of different systems with weird proprietary protocols and it has to work 100%. Every. single. penny. And if you're a $100-$200 million in assets credit union, you may have an IT team of 2-3 people (that's a swag, but it wouldn't be > 5)