The CU2.0 Podcast
Robert McGarvey
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This podcast explores contemporary, critical thinking and issues impacting the nation's credit unions. What do they need to be doing to not just survive but prosper?
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CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 278 Total Expert and Canvas Credit Union on Mortgages Now
*There is a lot of communication during the process of approving and funding a mortgage. The member has questions and needs to stay informed.*
*Enter Total Expert’s **James White** who tells about the company’s technology that automates a lot of the process - which of course frees up a credit union’s staff to do other work.*
*But don’t just take his word. Also on the show is** Shelby Parkhill**. Senior mortgage loan originator at Canvas Credit Union in Denver. She tells how the Total Expert tools work in the trenches at Canvas.*
*Along the way we also explore the shape of today’s mortgage business and it’s maybe not as grim as you fear. The business also is cyclical. Good times will come again and smart credit unions - Canvas is one such - are readying themselves for the next cycle.*
*A take away: a lot that is interesting now is happening at some credit union mortgage departments.*
*Want more of James White? **Listen **up to a 2022 podcast with him on supercharging member engagement. *
*Listen up*
*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
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*And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
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*Find out more about **CU2.0 a**nd the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto*
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Nov 29, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 277 Michael Bell on Credit Union - Bank Mergers
*This year there will be over 100 credit union mergers with other credit unions.*
*But there also will be mergers of credit unions with community banks and now is the time to start learning about what’s involved and what the payoffs are.*
*One big reason: probably half of the nation’s community banks are available to buy. *
*Another reason: for many reasons, many credit unions are hanging back, reluctant to take this plunge.*
*Part of the reason for hesitation is simple lack of information and on the show today is **Michael Bell**, Co-Chair of the Financial Institutions Practice Group at the law firm Honigman, the man who did the first credit union - bank merger in 2011 and who estimates that he has been involved in probably 90% of all credit union - bank mergers.*
*Bell knows what works, he knows why many of these deals never reach the finish line, and he also knows the payoffs for the institutions that in fact do close a deal.*
*The important fact about credit union - bank mergers: ultimately they are about money. That’s not so for many credit union - credit union mergers.*
*More credit unions with an eye on staying competitive will be eyeing doing deals with banks, predicts Bell.*
*This is a provocative show.*
*Listen up.*
*
For more info on mergers, listen to our trio of podcasts with Peter Duffy - #**274**, a quick **news flash in 2022**, and episode **119**.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
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*And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
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*Find out more about **CU2.0 a**nd the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto*
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Nov 20, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 276 on Helping Members Pay Off Their Medical Debt
*The nation is drowning in medical debt. According to KFF (nee the Kaiser Family Foundation) some 100 million of us have medical debt - 41% of adults. About one in five do not expect to ever be able to pay their debt off, according to **KFF**. *
*Enter **Epic River**, a Fort Collins CO based lending as a service provider, which came up with a startling idea. What if it took all of, say, a hospital’s unpaid bills and handed them off to a financial institution to professionally service that mountain of debt, asked **Jeff Grobask**i, CEO of Epic River.*
*What FI would take the debt? That’s where this idea is truly inspired. In this show, **Dan Edgerton**, Chief Lending Officer of** Clarity CU**, explains that the credit union assumes zero risk. Nada. *
*Even though it does no credit check when taking over the debt. That’s right: no FICO check. Nothing.*
*He admits that the CU board wondered if this was too good to be true.*
*But it is true and that is because when a debt is determined to be unlikely ever to be repaid, the paper is returned to the originating hospital which assumes the loss.*
*But the kicker is that so far Clarity has a default rate of only about 7%. That means 93% of the paper is in fact being serviced by the debtors.*
*Grobaski adds that many of the participants in the program have decent credit scores, often in the vicinity of 700. *
*That makes sense. A person with a sub 300 FICO score may already have simply given up. At 700, however, the person has much to lose and probably wants to do the right thing.*
*To really understand this innovative program, listen to the whole podcast. It’s stuff you almost certainly have never heard before.*
*Listen up*
*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
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*And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
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*Find out more about **CU2.0 a**nd the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto*
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Nov 15, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 275 Claire Winslow on Putting Social Media to Work for Your Credit Union
*Is your credit union on social media? *
*Actually let me ask the real question: are you getting results? *
*Such as? New members. New loans. Activities that boost your bottomline.*
*The reality is that yesteryear’s advertising/marketing media - local TV news, local radio, local newspapers and the standard youth sports sponsorships - are artifacts of a past marketing model. Today the word is social media.*
*And in this show,** Claire Winslow**, founder of** Best Practice Media**, tells how social media can bring powerful, important results to a credit union and often at surprisingly inexpensive budgets.*
*The beauty of social media, Winslow explains, is that results are quickly trackable. You know how many interacted with a Facebook or Google ad. There’s no guesswork, the numbers are specific and concrete.*
*Another huge plus: content and direction can be changed very quickly to suit changing times. *
*In the podcast Winslow tells what you need to know about social media and how to get started using them for results.*
*She also makes an offer of an unpublished credit union case study - just **email her** and reference the CU 2.0 podcast.*
*Get ready to take a big step into 21st century marketing. *
*Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
*
*And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
*
*Find out more about **CU2.0 a**nd the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto*
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Nov 13, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks with Kirk Kordeleski Episode 17 - More on PARC Street and SERPs
*The transition from OM To PARC Street Partners continues smoothly, says Kirk Kordeleski who explained that the group inside OM that had been focused on creating SERPs for senior credit union executives have all moved to PARC Street. Kordeleski’s message: there have been no disruptions in service.*
*Not everybody in credit unions has gotten the message however so Kordeleski is actively spreading that message.*
*Along the way, in this show he talks about crafting retirement plans for credit union executives in today’s environment of much higher interest rates. It can be done, PARC Street is doing it and in this show Kordeleski tells how.*
*He also predicts that the demand for good retirement plans for senior staff will only increase. Credit unions are competing for people with big banks and fintechs and credit unions need competitive weaponry to attract and keep talent.*
*Kordesleski also muses that the merger trend will continue.*
*It’s a full show. Listen up.*
*
*
*Hear episode one in Money Talks **here**. ** Episode 2 is here**. Episode 3** is here**. Episode 4 **is here.** Episode 5 is **here.** Episode 6** is here.** Episode 7 is **here. **Episode 8 is here.** Episode 9 is **here**. Episode 10 is **here**. 11 is **here**. **Episode 12 is here**. Episode 13 is **here**. Episode 14 is **here **and that’s one you don’t want to miss because it is part 1 of So You Want to Be a Credit Union CEO? Part 2 of Becoming a CEO is **here**. Kordeleski on making **events **work for you is here. Kordeleski on the first news about the creation of PARC Street is **here **- it’s a detailed explanation of the why and how this just might be a benefit to credit union clients.*
*In this episode Kordeleski mentions Doug English who has creative ideas about growing a credit union executive’s retirement income. Here is a **link **to our podcast with him. *
*Want to know more about SERPs - or other matters raised in this podcast? Email Kordeleski kkordeleski@ParcStreetPartners.com*
* *
*Have suggestions for topics to explore in this show? Email me, Robert McGarvey - rjmcgarvey@gmail*
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Nov 8, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 274 Peter Duffy on Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers
*Sacred cows make the best burgers. It was some 25 years ago when I first heard speaker and consultant Robert **Kriegel **throw out that phrase and he even** titled a book **with it. It’s a good read and still in print. Every CU c suiter should read it.*
*That’s because we have entered an era where what worked yesterday…doesn’t. Survival is the issue.*
*In today’s podcast **Peter Duffy**, a credit union expert and a managing director at Piper Sandler, tosses out that sacred cow phrase as a piece of key advice he offers credit union board members at board retreats he now regularly speaks at.*
*In the credit union context what the phrase means is look hard at what you are doing and ask - are we doing this well, is it essential to who we are? Face facts: a lot of what many credit unions do is done because “members expect credit unions to” - even if the credit union isn’t especially good at it and despite the reality that nowadays there are lots of places to get a mortgage or car loan or a credit loan or a CD or…keep going down the list and ask, is this one of our sacred cows?*
*This podcast gives a taste of what’s discussed a the board retreats and the range is wide - should we stop issuing our own credit cards, should we outsource mortgages, and - maybe the crucial question of the moment - with whom should we merge?*
*That last is on the list because, says Duffy, suddenly lots of credit unions are chewing the merger question.*
*There’s a lot to digest in this show.*
*Listen up.*
*Duffy has been on the show before - in **2022 **talking merger mania and in **2020**.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
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*And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
*
*Find out more about **CU2.0 a**nd the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto*
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Nov 6, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast David Jones on Following the PESO Path to Prosperity at Credit Unions and Fintechs
*The headline on the CUTimes article by **David Jones** tells you why you want to listen to this podcast: **Invest in PESO to Build a World-Class Credit Union Marketing Strategy**.*
*Jones is an EVP at the William Mills Agency in Atlanta and their trade is public relations which, increasingly, follows a PESO model.*
*What’s that?*
*PESO is a formula crafted by **Gini Dietrich **and it refers to Paid Media (such as advertising), Earned Media (write ups in publications, etc.), Shared Media (think social) and Owned Media (sponsored content for instance). Once upon a time most PR revolved entirely around earned media but as that channel has atrophied, eyes have been focused on alternative avenues - such as Paid, Shared and Owned.*
*In this show Jones elaborates on the PESO model and we delve into how it just might help credit unions (and definitely fintechs!) get more visibility.*
*At what cost, Jones talks money in the show.*
*Here’s the reality: most credit unions do PR badly if at all. Many fintechs are no better. Find out what you are missing in this show.*
*Listen up.*
*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
*
*And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
*
*Find out more about **CU2.0 a**nd the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto*
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Nov 1, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 273 UPTIQ's Lending Platform for Holistic Advisors - and Credit Unions Too
*Picture this: a member comes into your office and says he wants a million dollar loan and he has collateral.*
*What kind of collateral?*
*The head of a **tyrannosaurus rex**, a huge dinosaur and, yes, there is a **market **for t rex bones*
*What do you do?*
*The temptation is to say get the hell outta here.*
*But just maybe the smarter, very 21 century solution is to call **UPTIQ** where the mantra is THE LENDING PLATFORM FOR HOLISTIC ADVISORS.*
*On its website, there’s this elaboration: “Whether its money to buy a new home, start a new business or fund working capital, UPTIQ's turnkey technology enables financial advisors to connect their clients to a network of lenders who can fund any liquidity objective.”*
*Yes, UPTIQ also will handle mainstream lending and borrowing needs.*
*But it does not shy away from the exotic, said** Taylor Adkins**, chief product and marketing officer.*
*To simplify what UPTIQ has done is stick together software that helps match up financial advisors who have clients with borrowing needs with lenders who have cash on hand to lend. If it’s an exotic loan, fine. If it’s a more conventional loan, that may be fine too.*
*There definitely is a place for credit unions in this equation, said Adkins. What, you don’t have any financial advisors on staff anymore? That may not matter with UPTIQ - in the show Adkins explains.*
*Definitely, credit unions have tightened up lending practices but just about every credit union wants to make loans - and a talk with UPTIQ very well might help get some additional loans funded.*
*Listen up.*
*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
*
*And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
*
*Find out more about **CU2.0 a**nd the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto*
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Oct 25, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 272 Backbase and SavvyMoney on Credit Scores That Matter - To Your Members and the Credit Union
*Call this show beyond credit scores.*
*The reality is that in 2023 credit scores are as common as nitrogen on our planet. There is nothing special about offering access to credit scores to members because, well, they can get them anywhere.*
*Personally I can think of a half dozen different accounts of mine that provide free access to credit scores.*
*Probably I have more that I have simply ignored.*
*So why am I talking about credit scores? Because **Backbase**, which bills itself as the engagement banking platform and it provides online and mobile banking to many US credit unions, and **SavvyMoney**, have teamed up to offer the SavvyMoney credit score to members at credit unions on the Backbase platform.*
*And what SavvyMoney offers is way beyond a credit score. That’s the starting point, but SavvyMoney also offers action steps for consumers (“here’s how to lift your 680 credit score to 750”) as well as suggesting possible loans to members. The tools also may help steer members into appropriate investments such as CDs,*
*This is a credit score with lots of financial wellness pointers and action steps built in.*
*On the show are Brian McNutt, Backbase’s vice president of product management for the U.S. mid-market, and Chris Fraenza, SavvyMoney’s chief revenue officer.*
*Listen up.*
*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
*
*And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
*
*Find out more about **CU2.0 a**nd the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto*
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Oct 18, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 271 Calque's Jeremy Foster Tells About An Innovative Way to Take Big Friction Out of Home Buying
*This is the trade-up home buyer’s dilemma: in most cases, until his/her existing home actually sells, he cannot truly close on a new home.*
*Home sellers are increasingly wary of the standard contingency clause that gives a buyer an out if his/.her present home doesn’t sell.*
*Those sellers like all cash buyers.*
*What’s a trade up home buyer to do?*
*Enter **Calque**, the trade-in mortgage company.*
*Calque, on its website, tells how its process works: “Fill out a 5-minute questionnaire on our website, and we will send you a purchase price guarantee (PPG) within 3-5 business days. The PPG assures you that if your house doesn’t sell on the open market within a specified timeframe (usually 120 days in most markets), Calque will buy it for a mutually agreed upon, fair price. Once you accept the PPG, a lending partner will pre-approve you for your new home loan.”*
*Here’s the end game: “Sell your original house on the open market for maximum value. If you aren’t able to sell and close on it within the specified time frame (usually 120 days in most markets), Calque will buy it for the PPG. Either way, you move forward with a conventional loan on your new home.”*
*Where do credit unions come in? Jeremy Foster, a Calque senior executive, explains that credit unions, which already have the trust of their members, can readily explain the admittedly innovative Calque process to their members. *
*Set up in the Calque system is fast and simple, no core interface required. A credit union would be up and running with Calque in two weeks to two months, says Foster.*
*Now about now you are probably wondering what kind of weird name is Calque. The good news is that is exactly what I ask Foster in the beginning of the show.*
*Know that a calque is also called a loan translation - here’s a **link **that explains what this linguistics mumbo jumbo means.*
*Claque is a brilliant play on words - but it also may be just the device for removing a big slice of friction and anxiety from the trade up home buying process of members.*
*Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
*
*And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
*
*Find out more about **CU2.0 a**nd the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto*
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Oct 16, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Bonus Show: Q Protocol and the Future of Crypto and Blockchain
*Just when you thought **Sam Bankman-Fried** had signaled the end of crypto, there just may be cause for optimism about the future of crypto and blockchain.*
*Think about this: it was just maybe a dozen years ago and optimism was wide and deep about both crypto currencies and blockchain. What has happened to decimate that optimism? Lots of theft and money - in the billions of dollars - that had gone missing.*
*Conclusion: the underlying system needs a foundational fix.*
*Meet Nicolas Biagosh of** Q Protocol** where the slogan is “the future of governance has arrived.”*
*It’s simple, isn’t it? The problem with crypto has been faulty governance.*
*That’s where Q Protocol comes in. Here is what it says about itself: “ Q provides a governance backbone for the Web3 world, allowing you to build intergalactic organizations that go beyond code-is-law.*
*Technically, the Q Protocol comprises an EVM-compatible proof-of-stake blockchain and a set of smart contracts.*
*But this simple technical description does not do the protocol justice: Beyond the code, Q is based on a novel concept of how we can transact in the decentralized world, combining the benefits of a public, open and decentralized ledger with the transparency of enforceable private contracts.”*
*In the podcast Biagosh offers a largely non technical explanation of what Q Protocol is all about and why this just may make a difference for you.*
*Will Q Protocol be the backbone of a new kind of cross border banking?*
*Listen up.*
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Oct 11, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 270 Rocket Mortgage Wants to Be Your Mortgage Department - Hear Why This Just Might Be Very Smart for Both Parties
*Meet your new Best Friend: Rocket Mortgage.*
*Is that boos and curses I am hearing?*
*Understand: I know many in the credit union universe view Rocket Mortgage as the enemy. That opinion even has been voiced on past episodes of this podcast.*
*Understandably, too, Rocket Mortgage - the **leading **US mortgage originator - has enemies. Leaders usually do.*
*But in this show, you will hear **Sam Schey**, Executive Vice President, Partnerships*
*Rocket Mortgage, tell exactly how Rocket Mortgage may in fact be a genuine friend to credit unions.*
*The **Credit Union Times** story tells the story: “Rocket Mortgage to Woo Small Credit Unions.”*
*In the show Schey indicated that the target market probably is small and mid sized credit unions. Large credit unions with large mortgage departments probably aren’t prime Rocket Mortgage targets.*
*But smaller institutions - especially ones that have shrunk their mortgage activities - just may be ideal for letting Rocket Mortgage handl…
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Oct 9, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks with Kirk Kordeleski Episode 16
*Listeners to this podcast know that Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, is a busy guy. That became vivid one recent day when I signed into LinkedIn and saw a Kordeleski **post **where he announced he had become a partner in a new company formed to create SERPs for credit union executives: PARC Street Partners, where PARC stands for Pay Attract Retain Compensate.*
*Kordeleski of course had been involved in SERPs at OM Financial, but he - and other OM employees - have now moved over to PARC Street. In the show Kordeleski tells why and why this just may be very good news for credit unions and their executives.*
*He also stressed that service for SERPs that had been set up via OM has now shifted to PARC Street. There will be no service disruption, he stressed.*
*Minutes later Kordeleski posted that he had been named an **advisor **to Black Dragon Capital - a fund formed by Luis Hernandez, well known in the credit union world for the DNA core, which for its ti…
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Oct 5, 2023
The CU 2.0 AI Sessions: A Preview of the Ashland Event
*That whistle you hear - the AI train is leaving the station and forward thinking credit unions are hopping aboard.*
*Here’s the reality: the big banks are all in with AI. So are the big fintechs. *
*Where does that leave you?*
*Behind is where you are likely to be unless you begin to grapple with AI and its potential to transform financial services and your institution.*
*The analogy is to the Web. Forward thinking financial institutions hopped into it in the mid 1990s. Laggards hung back, often into the 21st century.*
*A big difference now is everything moves faster. *
*AI needs your focus now. Immediately. Today.*
*The good news is that CU 2.0 is holding a two day AI intensive workshop on October 26 and 27 in Ashland OR. There’s a **link **in the show notes. *
*Attendance will be extremely limited. There will be plenty of opportunity for getting questions answered. *
*In this podcast there’s a preview of what attendees will learn, as told by Kirk Drake, the CU 2.0 fou…
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Oct 4, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 269 Liquidity, Lending and Your Credit Union: Three Expert Perspectives
*Whither credit union lending - or put more bluntly, when will today’s liquidity issues and their constraint on lending lessen?*
*That’s a huge topic - liquidity is a key concern at just about every credit union - and that’s why we brought together three experts with different takes on lending and liquidity.*
*There's Mac Thompson, founder and president of White Clay and a data analytics expert. He’s also a former CU 2.0 **podcast guest**.*
*There’s Barry Kirby, a co-founder of Union Credit which aims to help credit unions grow their memberships. He too is a past** podcast guest**. *
*The third guest is Gary Lewis, managing director of lending and deposit solutions at Jack Henry and, you guessed it, also a past **podcast guest**. *
*This is a lively conversation about lending, liquidity and also related topics such as the threats posed by non banks, the need for better credit union curation of technology options, and a coming to grips with the credit union generational s…
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Sep 27, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 268 Kirk Kordeleski on Getting Real Results from Industry Events aka How to Make Meetings Work for You
*Have you ever spent two days at an industry meeting and on your flight home you found yourself wondering, why did I go there? Did I get a thing useful out of this?*
*Join the club. Events regret is widespread.*
*And then there is Kirk **Kordeleski**, former CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union which he grew into a colossus and now he's an executive with O.M. Financial, where he helps credit unions create competitive retirement packages for c-suite executives. *
*The idea for this show came from Kordeleski’s **Facebook **feed where one week he is in Homolulu, the next Atlanta, the next Michigan, the next Washington DC and the travel whirlwind goes on as Kordeleski travels from industry event to event.*
*Two questions came to mind: why hasn’t he burned out and how does he get useful results from this travel schedule?*
*Kordeleski is on the podcast to tell us his how to of traveling sanely and making it all work for him.*
*In a few words the recipe comes down to this: know the…
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Sep 20, 2023
CU 2.0 Episode 267 Bryce Deeney on BNPL Today And Why Your CU Needs It Now
*BNPL. When we talked with Bryce Deeney, CEO of Equipifi, about his BNPL focused startup in **December 2021 **BNPL probably sounded to most listeners like a new alphabet soup and who really cared about it?*
*Flashforward and quite possibly you personally have used BNPL. If you haven’t a relative or friend definitely has. Companies like Aftrpay, Klarna and Affirm are major fintech players. And there are mainstream entrants into BNPL such as AMerican Express and Apple.*
*Here’s the question: where’s a place for credit unions in BNPL?*
*Know that the big BNPL players are busily making deals with retailers, both online and bricks and mortar. They are disintermediating traditional financial institutions and that means you.*
*Enter Bryce Deener and **Equipifi **which have been busily creating tools for credit unions to offer BNPL as a payments option to their members. In this show, Deeney tells why a credit union needs BNPL in its arsenal (you don’t want to lose members do you?),…
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Sep 13, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 266 Richard Crone on Fednow and Why You Want It
*Fednow just may change your credit union’s entire approach to how money moves in and out. *
*That is fact and the fact is all the realer because **Fednow **actually launched in July. Sure, real time money movement has been talked about for at least a decade bur that was just talk, now it is real.*
*Could you ignore it for the time being? That would be to your detriment, warns this podcast’s guest expert on Fednow,** Richard Crone**, a longtime payments guru.*
*Crone also tells a fast way to gain significant experience with instant money movement. You may not like this particular piece of advice - over **4000 credit unions **currently are not following it. But give a listen to Crone’s argument and you just may be persuaded.*
*Crone also says that credit unions have a huge built-in advantage over community banks in regard to real time payments. This is a fight waiting to be won. If only you get involved.*
*Listen up.*
*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help spo…
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Sep 6, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 265 Prakash Natarajan, managing director of payments strategy for SRM on Why Your Credit Union Needs a Fintech Blueprint
*What’s in your fintech blueprint?*
*Wait, you say, what’s a fintech blueprint? Good question and if you didn’t ask it probably you should have because few credit unions have current blueprints or even old, dusty ones.*
*On that note, how often should you update a fintech blueprint? On the show today is Prakash Natarajan, managing director for payments strategy for SRM and he says every three years. *
*Ask me and I’d say every two years.*
*Either way the point is that the fintech landscape is fast morphing - who knew about generative AI 9 months ago - and an institution needs a blueprint that sets out fintech priorities and why they matter.*
*Otherwise you are at the mercy of the next fintech sales person in your office who waves a shiny object in your face and, yep, it’s cool…but do your members and institution really have to have it? That is why you need a blueprint.*
*Background reading for this show is the SRM report Why Every Financial Institution Needs a Fintech…
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Aug 30, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 264 Apiture's Daniel Haisley on Zombie Members and Your Credit Union
*How many zombie members are on your credit union’s books? You know who we mean - they sometimes also are called ghost members. They have a few bucks parked in the institution from back when they became members but, nowadays, they are mainly invisible. And worse: the credit union often charges no monthly fee but it may pay a monthly fee for that member’s access to online banking even though the member doesn’t use it.*
*You want to know Daniel Haisley. He runs innovation at Apiture, a North Carolina based digital banking provider that serves some 300 credit unions and community banks. It serves some mega institutions but Haisley says Apiture’s sweet spot is serving mid sized and smaller institutions.*
*And Apiture has a tool for helping to activate those zombie members. In the show Haisley tells how it works and what kinds of results it delivers.*
*He also answers the big question: when a new credit union customer comes to you why are they leaving their existing digital provi…
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Aug 23, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 263 What You Need to Know About Board Composition, the Statistical Reality
*Consider this show all you want to know about credit union boards and gender and ethnic composition.*
*Know this: you probably will be surprised, and disappointed, about one statistic you will hear.*
*Also know: the source for this show is a 69 page report, **Credit Union Boards of Directors: Board Size, Gender, Race and Institutional Performance, 2012-2021**. Download the report, it’s free via consulting firm, **CuCollaborate**. *
*The report is statistics rich and in this show we talk about the research methodology so you will hear how the report was created.*
*We also talk about possible future research projects involving boards.*
*And you know what, credit union boards are remarkably opaque. Most members know very little about their board - indeed they may not even know there is a board and it is, theoretically, elected by the membership.*
*Speaking for me - not CuCollaborate - I think there is a great opportunity for dramatically enhanced board transparency.*
*Most credi…
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Aug 16, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 262 Tungsten's Phil Davis on What's In Your Credit Union's Name?
*What’s in a name?*
*Shakespeare asked that question but right now lots of credit union leaders are doing likewise. For good reason. The institution’s name may no longer suit the present realities as SEGs fade away, geographic bases shift and sometimes, just maybe, there’s a sense that a more timely name might well have greater appeal for millennials and Gen Z who are the future.*
*Enter** Phil Davis** and North Carolina based Tungsten, a branding company that has helped hundreds of businesses change their names including a number of credit unions. Among Tungsten's clients are Additional Financial, a rebrand of the former Central Florida Educators Federal Credit Union, as well as Radiant Credit Union, a rebrand of the former SunState Federal Credit Union. *
*Also on the list is Skyla, formed after Charlotte Metro Credit Union and Premier FCU joined and opted for a new name.*
*Davis says he expects more credit unions will knock on his door as they realize something has to chan…
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Aug 14, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 15 with Kirk Kordeleski on So You Want To Be A Credit Union CEO Part 2
*Ask Kirk Kordesleski, onetime CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union where he pursued an extremely aggressive business strategy designed to double the size of the institution in five years, to mame a key challenge facing credit unions right now and he is blunt: a new generation of leaders has to be prepared and prepped and there is no time for delay.*
*The Baby Boomer generation of credit union CEOs is fast retiring. The youngest are 58. The oldest are 76. *
*There is a booming job market for new CEOs. Opportunity is knocking.*
*Kordeleski is doing his part in empowering candidates. He’s mentoring a growing number of ambitious credit union executives.*
*In this show he shares some of the big lessons he imparts including big surprises that may come from the credit union board and senior leadership early in a new CEOs reign.*
*Listen to the very end and Kordeleski reveals an event he’s holding where wannabe CU CEOs will get in-person training and pointers.*
*Hear episode one in…
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Aug 9, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 261 retired Sharonview CU CEO Bill Partin and The Leadership B.E.T.
*Bill **Partin**, the recently retired CEO at nearly $2 billion **Sharonview Federal Credit Union** in the Carolinas, went there after a long career at multiple Southern California credit unions where he ended in the c-suite at **Partners**, the Burbank based institution created to serve Walt Disney Company employees.*
*At Partners he worked for then CEO **John Janclaes** and one day Partin asked his boss when he planned to retire. He said in effect not soon.*
*Partin then told him he wanted to be a CEO and so he would be looking elsewhere.*
*His boss did the right thing: he supported him completely.*
*Soon Partin landed the job at Sharonview and, in the show, he tells about his journey there.*
*But there’s a lot more in this show. For instance: Partin started in credit unions as a part time teller when he was putting himself through a community college. He kept working at credit unions as he proceeded to earn a bachelor’s degree - and he just stayed in the industry because he…
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Aug 2, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 260 Matthew Butler on Charitable Donation Accounts
*CDA - three letters but, ask Matthew Butler, and he will tell you this is a potential huge win for credit unions and their communities.,*
*Butler is founder of **Elite Capital** where a chief product offering is the CDA - that’s a **charitable donation account** and, no, I hadn’t heard of it either.*
*Just a handful of credit unions currently use a charitable donation account and Butler is here to tell you that’s a costly mistake.*
*Here’s why: a CDA allows a credit union to make investments in otherwise impermissible vehicles where the kicker is that 51% of returns have to be distributed as charitable donations (that presently means a 501 C 3). But the credit union can retain the remaining 49% for its own uses.*
*What’s an impermissible investment? In the show Butler points particularly to investment grade corporate bonds. There are other options too. *
*Why don’t more credit unions use CDAs? We talk at some length in the show about that very point.*
*A lot simply h…
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Jul 26, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 259 Inclusiv CEO Cathie Mahon on Climate Change and Credit Unions
*$200 billion. That is how much money is in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and one credit union voice that has been loud in seeking a share is Inclusiv, the trade group for community development credit unions that now has 470 members.*
*Just why is Inclusiv involved in this?*
*Exactly that question is why we invited Inclusiv CEO Cathie Mahon on the show. She’s a past guest - in 2019 she was in** episode 15**.*
*In this show she offers an articulate explanation of why environmental issues are in fact central to the concerns of community development credit unions.*
*In June Mahon **testified **before the US Senate Climate Change Task Force where she said, “As credit unions invest in climate solutions, they find strong synergies between increasing*
*access to clean energy and improved financial stability. As community owned and controlled*
*financial institutions, community development credit unions see both a responsibility and*
*opportunity to make their communities greene…
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Jul 24, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 14 with Kirk Kordeleski on So You Want To Be A Credit Union CEO
*So you want to be a credit union CEO?*
*This is your must listen podcast.*
*In the show, Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union which he grew to be among the nation’s biggest, tells his path from starting as a part time teller at **Bank-Fund Staff Credit Union** in Washington DC (created for employees of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) to rising to the top at a huge credit union.*
*Along the way Kordeleski also ponders what it means that many CEOs of his generation in fact started as tellers or similar entry level positions. Nowadays many fast risers in credit unions come in the door as executives and never worked in a call center or as a teller. What does that mean?*
*Later, Kordeleski talks about the free - yes, free - consulting he now offers to a couple dozen young CU execs who say they want to become a CEO. To qualify a candidate has to hold an SVP level job or a c-suite slot. *
*In that consulting Kordeleski preaches his doctrine…
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Jul 19, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 258 Becky Reed on Crypto, CUSOs, Small CUs, and Being BRaaS
*True or false: a credit union with assets well under $200 million offers crypto currencies to members.*
*Meet **Becky Reed**, the now former CEO of Lone Star Credit Union - assets now around $165 million - and, yep, Lone Star offers crypto to its members. In the show Reed tells why Lone Star made this decision - mainly because it saw a lot of member assets exiting the credit union to buy crypto elsewhere - and also how easy to was to do this for members.*
*Take away: no credit union is too small to explore offering crypto.*
*You probably know of Reed, she’s the **chair **of NACUSO, the trade group for CUSOs, and in this show you will hear her passionate defense of CUSOs as part of what makes credit unions so special.*
*In the show Reed also explains why she left Lone Star and what she is doing now, namely helming **BRaaS **- Becky Reed as a Service - where she helps credit unions explore crypto, blockchain and a range of tech innovations.*
*This is an upbeat episode. If you wor…
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Jul 18, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Special Edition: Introducing CU CoPilot, the Credit Union AI Consortium
*AI - you know it’s the big new thing that has won all the buzz in today’s tech world.*
*Does it deserve it?*
*Hear a loud “yes” in this podcast with** Saroop Bharwani**, CEO of Senso.ai and a co-creator of **CU Copilot**, a consortium of AI early adopter credit unions that are joining together to learn how to put AI to transformative uses in their institutions.*
*A half dozen credit unions already engage in CU Copilot and Bahrwani says more are coming and that is a good thing because credit unions are in a position to grab a dramatic lead in AI adoption and that will help the industry stay highly competitive through the years of change that are on the horizon.*
*Also on the show is **Joey Rudisill**, CIO at $500 million Central Willamette Credit Union which is already a consortium member. On the show Joey gives an incisive perspective on what AI adoption is like on the ground floor of a credit union.*
*Here is the link to CuCopilot: **http://cucopilot.com/*
*You want to…
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Jul 12, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 257 UHCU's Kevin Farley on How to Use AI Today, Really
*AI - it’s the word of the moment.*
*And many credit unions are rushing to familiarize themselves, even to implement pilots internally.*
*Stop right there.*
*Before taking actions, listen to this podcast with **Kevin Farley**, vice president of experience and engagement at United Heritage Credit Union in Austin TX*
*Farley popped up on my radar screen with a down to earth, practical article on generative AI at the **Financial Brand**. *
*His pitch is that credit unions need to approach AI with a crawl, walk, run patience - and probably no credit unions are yet in a position to do brisk running in AI, if only because the necessary tools just aren’t ready yet.*
*But there is much useful a credit union can do to get comfortable crawling, then walking with AI. Farley offers suggestions about areas where tangible benefits of AI are plentiful even in the early days of use.*
*For now most credit unions will satisfy their curiosity playing with the free versions of ChatGPT and Googl…
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Jul 5, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 256 Crypto Currency Is Thriving at WeStreet CU in Tulsa OK
*There are three mind blowing facts in this podcast.*
*Number one: credit unions currently have a greater appetite for offering crypto currencies to members than do banks to their customers. The source of that is **Kian Sarreshteh**, CEO of **CryptoFi**, a crypto as a service company formed to help traditional FIs to offer digital assets. His proof: CryptoFi has pivoted in the last year to focus on offering its products to credit unions.*
*Number two: NCUA is much more open to crypto than is FDIC, said Kian. So just when you think NCUA is a Stone Age relic chew on that.*
*Number three: the first credit union install for CryptoFi isn’t at a credit union in San Jose or Cambridge Mass or Brooklyn. It’s **WeStreet**, a $950 million institution headquartered in Tulsa OK.*
*On the show are Kian from CryptoFi and **Eric Hilaire**, chief digital officer at WeStreet.*
*Face reality: credit unions have to take steps to stop the outflow of member dollars into more contemporary asset clas…
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Jun 28, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 255 Fighting Fraud with Effectiv AI's Ravi Sandepudi
*Real time. Dynamic. Personalized.*
*Accept this: what worked in combatting fraudsters 10 years ago is about as useful today as a 10 year old PC or cellphone.*
*Accept this too: it’s war on with fraudsters and smart financial institutions understand that very likely the criminals know a lot about the FI’s weaponry.*
*How to combat these criminals?*
*On the show today is** Ravi Sandepudi**, CEO of** Effectiv.ai**, a new-style anti fraud platform that has been built by a cyber team with deep histories at Google and PayPal - and know that PayPal is well known for how professional its anti fraud group is and Google is where much today’s AI intellectual platform originated.*
*Go back a decade or two and much fraud prevention was built around hard wired rules which worked reasonably well but also true is that criminals learned the rules and then dreamed up workarounds.*
*What’s needed today is an intelligent, evolving fraud toolkit and that is what Effectiv seeks to provide its…
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Jun 21, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 254 Doug English on How to Increase a CU Exec's Retirement Income by 40%
*What if you could increase your retirement income by 40%?*
*Nope, you don’t have to invest in a new crypto currency and neither do have to skate on the wrong side of tax shenanigans.*
*What you do have to do is listen to this podcast with **Doug English**, a North Carolina based financial planner who has specialized in optimizing the after tax income flow from a credit union executive’s typical retirement package which involves tools that frankly are little known outside credit unions such as SERPs and 457Fs. *
*The power of English’s approach is that withdrawals and payouts are structured around the recipient’s age and tax bracket.*
*Remember, some of a credit union executive’s retirement income is taxable. Some - via SERP for instance - usually isn’t.*
*What **English **does is create a time sequence for payouts that - legally - minimize tax consequences and of course optimize the retiree’s quality of life.*
*Understand, I went into this show certain that I would…
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Jun 14, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 253 on Greenlight's Super Powered Debit Card for Kids
Is a Greenlight card in your wallet?
If you have children – particularly school age kids – you want to know about Greenlight because this is a functioning debit card but it is designed for use by kids who are gaining financial skills as their parents guide them in the how to of using plastic.
Understand, too, that increasing numbers of retail venues are cashless – plastic is needed to transact.
Of course there also are online purchases that require plastic.
Greenlight solves those issues and it offers both a direct to consumer service (starting at $4.95 per month) and now it is fast signing up financial institutions who are offering Greenlight to their customers and members.
Already on board is Chase.
But know that Greenlight has already signed up credit unions and wants more because the company gets that the credit union mission syncs with Greenlight’s.
On the show today is Pete Steger, vice president of business development at Greenlight.
Listen up.
Like what you are…
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Jun 12, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 13 with Kirk Kordeleski on Retirement Planning for Executives at Smaller Credit Unions
*Are generous pension plans for credit union executives only for those who work in the biggest institutions, the ones at the billion dollar plus credit unions?*
*Do only the rich get richer? What about the many executives toiling in the thousands of smaller credit unions?*
*Much of the discussion in past shows in this Money Talks series with Kirk Kordeleski has in fact been focused on pension options for the senior most executives at the biggest credit unions.*
*Now for something completely different. In this show Kordeleski muses on his hopes and plans for bringing meaningful pension options to credit union c-suite executives at much smaller institutions.*
*This is not pie in the sky. These are real, tangible plans that Kordeleski is hashing out.*
*He’s honest and realistic. It’s not straightforward to plan meaningful retirement options for executives in credit unions smaller than $100 million. They typically do not have the capital. But even in this case Kordeleski has thoug…
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Jun 7, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 252 P1FCU and Jack Henry Tell the How To of More Commercial Lending
You want to make more commercial loans. Join the club. So do more other credit unions.
But that is why this show is a must listen. In it Gary Lewis, managing director of lending and deposit solutions at Jack Henry, and Dennis Janikowski, senior vice president of lending at P1FCU, tell the secret sauce that is helping P1FCU, a northern Idaho institution, enjoy significant growth in its commercial lending.
Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto
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May 31, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast 251 on All You Want to Know about USDA Loans for Your Community
Did you know that there are many, many loan programs available from the US Department of Agriculture – and many feature government guarantees?
Probably you didn’t know – these programs are something of a secret.
But over 100 credit unions – including Navy Federal – know about the programs and work with Greater Commercial Lending, a company that works with borrowers, USDA and also credit unions to get loans funded.
What kinds of loans? Don’t be misled by the word agriculture. USDA makes all kinds of loans, funding everything from farm equipment to renewable energy. And some loans even can fund projects in urban areas.
On the show is GCL executive vice president Jeremy Gilpin who explains how the program works and how credit unions can get involved.
He also tells that GCL is in the process from beginning to end. It helps fill out the loan app, works with USDA, even helps syndicate many loans.
Now do you want to find out more from GCL?
Listen up.
Like what you are hear…
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May 24, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 250 Rock Carter Tells What Credit Unions Need to Know About Medicare and Their Members
Medicare – you’d almost think it’s a four letter word, not the three syllable word it is. That’s because it is an immensely complicated issue – Congress did write the federal laws that shape it! – and as Americans approach 65 suddenly they have to make an immensely complicated decision about their health care.
How easy is that? Not.
But consider this an enormous opportunity for credit unions, with their memberships that skew older. Credit unions can step in as trusted advisors and help members make better decisions while also bringing in a few dollars in fees into the credit union.
That’s win win.
But doing this requires skill. The complexities of Medicare demand talents to navigate it.
Enter Rock Carter, president of Medicare CU, a CUSO set up to help credit unions help their members into good Medicare decisions.
You may remember a recent show with Silvur, the winner of CU 2.0’s Fintech Madness battle in Las Vegas. Silvur – which helps credit unions and their m…
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May 17, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 249 John Findlay LemonadeLXP Round Two on Teaching Tech to Employees and Members
Your institution has digital tools, lots of them, but here are the two questions that genuinely matter: Do your members know how to use them; and do your employees?
Too often the answer to both questions is nope.
Here’s a possible cure: John Findlay and LemonadeLXP. The LemonadeLXP promise is that it’s easy to use tools will turn your staff into digital mavens and your members will learn to use the tools that very probably your institution already has.
A case in point found in this show: I ask Findlay how LemonadeLXP would help a member whose question is, I want to send money to a relative using Zelle. How do I do that?
Understand: failure to know how to use a tool is a primary reason members don’t use it.
The stakes are even higher with financial tools – because every member worries that a first time Zelle (mis)use will result in the account emptying out into a Minsk account and who knows where that is?
Findlay also talks about actual cases where FI clients dramatically…
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May 15, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 12 with Kirk Kordeleski on Today's Changing Retirement Age and the Impact on Financial Planning
We have entered a brave new world of retirement planning – and that very much includes planning in the credit union c-suite.
Maybe the biggest change: there today is no fixed retirement age. A generation ago, for most executives, 65 was the target. That was widely accepted in retirement planning.
Now we have executives who want to retire early. Others want to stay on past 65, perhaps to 70 or longer. Exactly how does this impact executive retirement income packages such as SERPs and 457Fs, the two most common c-suite retirement plans?
On the show to help us understand how retirement plans are flexing to accommodate a new generation’s needs is Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union and now an executive with OM, a firm that specializes in executive retirement planning.
It turns out there already is flexibility built into most plans – and more flexibility is on its way, says Kordeleski.
Along the way Kordeleski muses on credit union mergers and their impa…
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May 10, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 248 Sparrow's Student Loan Tool for Credit Unions
Of course you want more young members – members under 40 are on every credit union’s wish list.
Enter Sparrow, which calls itself “the world’s most powerful student loan search.”
Here’s what may be the best part: Put Sparrow to work on your website – it’s a white labeled tool and will blend in seamlessly – and students (as well as their parents) will be able to search for private student loans as well as options for refinancing current student loans.
If a loan gets made, the credit union gets what you might think of as a finder’s fee – but does not own the paper or service it. That’s done by the lender that is found using Sparrow’s search tools.
It gets better still: Pen Fed already is a client. So are more credit unions.
Hundreds of colleges include pointers to Sparrow in their student aid materials.
There’s little – maybe no – downside risk to a credit union to explore Sparrow. The how to implement along with details on the financial relationship…
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May 3, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 247 Mitch Rutledge, Vertice AI, on Using Data to Grow Member Satisfaction
The answers you need to optimize member service – and keep your credit union on sound financial footing – are already available.
It’s just that they are hidden in your data.
That’s where Mitch Rutledge, CEO and co-founder of Vertice AI, comes in because his company are data scientists who specialize in finding useful information in the vast data stores just about all credit unions have.
Quiz time: what’s a vertice? Don’t sweat it. Geometry wasn’t a strong suit of mine. Yes, vertice is a term in geometry and what it is a place where two or more curves, lines, etc. meet.
What Rutledge wants to do with a credit union’s data is sift it in search of places where presently unmet member needs align with credit union offerings – it’s just that they have never connected. Vertice AI wants to help with that connecting.
Sure, we know, you’re hearing lots about AI and in past years you heard a lot about big data – but this show is different, it’s practical, hands on,…
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Apr 27, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 246 QCash Bought by Alloya
Three CEOs, one podcast.
Today’s guests are Todd Adams, CEO of Alloya Corporate Federal Credit Union, Gary Swindler, CEO of Washington State Employees Credit Union, and Seth Brickman, CEO of QCash.
What’s the occasion? Alloya has bought QCash which had been a CUSO founded by WSECU which also was its only investor.
This is big news. QCash is doing fascinating work that also happens to be at the core of the credit union mission. It is putting money in the hands of members who have experienced a life event – a blown car engine, a medical bill, maybe an emergency vet bill. Lots of events pop up and a huge percentage of Americans just don’t have the cash on hand to cope. Enter QCash which can get money in a member’s hands literally in seconds.
The loan does not hinge on a FICO score. In the show Brickman explain how QCash makes a decision on a loan application – it’s sophisticated, it’s fast, but it also aims to fund as many loans as it can within the limits of financial…
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Apr 25, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 11 with Kirk Kordeleski on Common Misconceptions About SERPs: What Don't You Know?
Ask Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union on Long Island. How SERPs – supplemental executive retirement plans – figure into credit union strategic thinking and he comes back with a blunt answer: Talent retention.
Face this reality: today credit unions are at war but this is a war with multiple enemies – big banks, community banks, other credit unions, non banks, you name it. Many kinds of institutions want to hoover up your members’ money and nowadays it is the better institutions that are winning.
Why are they winning? In most cases it’s simply that they have and retain better talent.
Serps play a key role in that. Yes, they reward executives financially when they retire, but – structured properly – they also help keep those executives at the institution. And that latter bit – retention – is not easy in a world where suddenly lots of institutions want to poach your best talent.
Consider this podcast a must listen for credit union board mem…
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Apr 19, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 245 Agent IQ Multiplies Member Communication Tools at Pinal County Federal Credit Union
*It’s not news that today’s members - unlike yesteryear’s - want to communicate with their financial institution on their own terms and that means how and when they want to. Even though it is midnight Saturday.*
*Enter **Agent IQ** a digital platform that let’s members communicate with their FI via web chat, mobile messaging, video chat, SMS messaging and more. There’s even a co-browsing feature that lets an anxious member invite a credit union expert to look at his/her screen to insure that, say, a form is filled out correctly.*
*A powerful feature of Agent IQ is that it allows a member to designate a specific credit union employee as their primary contact - just as many members historically have had a preferred teller. *
*Sound great, you may be thinking, but surely this technology is limited to the behemoth institutions.*
*Nope.*
*On the show today is Soren Bested, COO at Agent IQ, and the credit union customer is** Pinal County Federal Credit Union** - with assets ar…
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Apr 17, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Kirk Drake Quo Vadis? What's next for Drake and CU 2.0?
CU 2.0 Quo Vadis?
Where are you going?
It’s about seven years since Kirk Drake founded CU 2.0 which was rooted in the realization that getting smarter about tech was a necessary step in the survival of the credit union industry. So Drake built a company that helps fintechs figure out how to effectively work with credit unions and helps credit unions figure out how to work with fintechs.
A lot of productive good – for credit unions and fintechs alike – has come out of CU 2.0 in its first seven years.
What do the years ahead look like?
In this show Drake talks about how he is designing the future of CU 2.0. He also talks about how his work with CUSO Painted Hills and also Quilo fit into his CU 2.0 efforts.
By any measure Drake is one of the credit union world’s most energetic innovators. He’s also a realist. For credit unions the reality is that now is time to innovate – that means new, better tech – or perish. He is putting his energy into helping credit unions find…
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Apr 12, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 244 Filene's Taylor Nelms on Small Credit Unions Are Beautiful
*Small is beautiful.*
*That’s the title of a collection of essays by economist **E. F. Schumacher** but it might as well be the title of a new Filene research report that explores how **small credit unions **can thrive. *
*You’re right, mathematically it seems there’s a drip drip drip of small credit union deaths but listen to **Taylor Nelms**, senior director of research at **Filene**, and he claims that there is plenty of research evidence to suggest that many credit unions are certifiably healthy.*
*In this show Nelms offers the details and he dazzles with surprising factoids. Did you know that the first mobile remote deposit occurred at a small credit union? Did you know there’s a small credit union that accepts an Alaska fishing license as an ID?*
*I sure didn’t know these factoids.*
*Which brings us back to Schumacher’s book which is something of an attack on the idea that bigger is just better.*
*Flash over to Nelms who tells us that small often can mean more n…
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Apr 10, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Special Edition: Fintech Madness, Crowning Silvur the Winner
Sixteen fintechs suited up for the fray. Just one could win.
Welcome to CU2.0’s Fintech Madness, Las Vegas style in the days leading up to the NCAA’s basketball tourney and you know which team won there. Say Jersey City, say it loud, Danny Hurley and his UConn team.
But back to Fintech Madness. The competitors were all stars, many have been on the CU2.0 Podcast. Competitors went through four grueling rounds –
Best elevator pitch
Biggest expected impact
Easiest to implement
Most likely partner
So who won? Meet Rhian Horgan, founder and CEO of Silvur, where the slogan tells the message: Retirement Simplified.
The big brainstorm here is two fold. Credit unions have lots of members nearing retirement and as they get there they have to make some very hard decisions regarding both finances and healthcare, Social Security and Medicare. What they need is a trusted and trustworthy advisor to help them through this maze.
Enter the credit union and Silvur, a smart tool that helps a…
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Apr 5, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 243 San Francisco Fire CU Wants To Be Your Side Bank - the Creation of the Campaign with Josephine Chew
Go – right now – to this CU Times story about a new, bold marketing campaign from San Francisco Fire Credit Union, a $1.7 billion institution. This is unlike anything else you have ever seen from a credit union – promised.
On the show today is Josephine Chew, who tells how SF Fire came up with the campaign and why.
The why ought to be obvious. For many – especially wealthier – members a credit union account is a side bank relationship. And that’s OK. The credit union has a very real possibility of expanding that relationship.
Along the way she talks about the creation of the ad campaign, the metrics that show its success and more.
In this show Chew also muses about the differences between a credit union and a mega bank and she knows the latter because she came to SF Fire after a lengthy stint at Wells Fargo where she finished as an SVP.
Before that she put in time at Schwab.
She knows what it is like to work at a big institution.
And now she Is feeling her way at a b…
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Mar 30, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast VIP Live Boulder 5 TruStone's Tom Barkley on The Search for Solutions in Technology
Tom Barkley has a job you probably have never heard of. At TruStone Financial Credit Union he is VP, Solutions Architecture.
What’s that mean? Listen to the podcast. He explains in detail.
I wanted Barkley to guest on the podcast precisely because (a) I had never heard of this title; and (b) as I thought about it I realized that more credit unions need a person in this role as they sort through a staggering array of tech options…but are the solutions they bring what the business units of the credit union need? Does *anyone* at the credit union need them?
Barkley’s boss at TruStone is the CTO, Gary Jeter, whom you heard in a podcast last year. That show was taped at the inaugural CU 2.0 VIP Live event in Austin Texas.
In Barkley’s show you will also hear his discussion of why he went to Trinity College Dublin for his undergraduate education and how a Trinity history major migrated into technology.
But you will hear, too, what he is getting out of CU 2.0 VIP Live, a very dif…
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Mar 29, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 10 with Kirk Kordeleski on Cashing in a SERP Early - Can It Happen?
*Retirement, face it, is a hugely complex issue and that is why we are fortunate to have Kirk Kordeleski on the show. He’s the former Bethpage Federal Credit Union CEO and now an executive with **OM Financial Group** which specializes in c-suite retirement plans.*
*Kordeleski knows SERPs and in this show he tells about the issues facing executives - and their boards - when they want to cash in a SERP early, for health reasons, maybe, or because they want to move onto another job. Issues are complex. Kordeleski unravels them. *
*In this episode Kordeleski also muses on the conversations CEOs need to have with their direct report about their ambitions - especially when their ambitions likely won’t be met. This is great stuff, it’s inside the mind of a longtime CEO.*
*Listen up.*
*This show is in a Money Talks series where credit union compensation is untangled. This show will help some executives negotiate better pay packages and will also help some board members understand the…
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Mar 27, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast VIP Live from Boulder 4 Anne Legg on Getting What You Need From Your Data
*If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs.*
*Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds.*
*In this fourth podcast you will hear from **Anne Legg** who will tell you all you need to know about your data but what you’ve been afraid to ask.*
*I get it. Data to many credit union executives is just another four letter word. That’s because many institutions have poured lots of money into lots of data initiatives over the past decade and they have bupkis to show for it.*
*Legg doesn’t dispute that, not at all, Her spin is that data often is approached in the wrong way, with the wrong strategic objectives in mind.*
*Even better news is that in this show you will hear the word hadoop only once or twice and I think I’m the one who s…
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Mar 24, 2023
CU 2 VIP Live from Boulder 3 Saroop Bharwani on ChatGPT and the AI Revolution Sweeping Credit Unions
*If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs.*
*Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds.*
*In this third podcast you will hear from **Saroop Bharwani**, CEO of **Senso.ai**, who will tell you what you need to know about ChatGPT and similar tools from Google and Microsoft. Right now this species of AI is on every lip and the question is do credit unions need to know about this - the answer is yes, definitely.*
*The next question is what should your follow up steps be? Bharwani tells us.*
*This is not a deep dive into the underlying technology. What it is is a high level discussion about why - really - to stay competitive your credit union needs to be moving now to embrace this AI because it will change how work gets done in fundamen…
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Mar 23, 2023
CU 2 VIP Live from Boulder 2 Mart Vos - Eko on Stock Trading and Your Members
*If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs.*
*Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds.*
*Yes, there is background, ambient noise. Tune it out. *
*In this second podcast you will hear from Mart Vos, founder of **Eko**, a hybrid robo advisor with the wrinkle of allowing the account holder also to personally select stocks to add to his/her portfolio. Eko is integrated into the credit union’s app and is white labeled. The member believes he/she is dealing with his/her credit union - and in fundamental ways they are.*
*Vos’s sales pitch to credit unions is that Eko will stop some of the outflow of deposits into third party investment apps.*
*Eko also is free to the credit union. The enrolled member pays a small surcharge to use t…
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Mar 20, 2023
CU 2 VIP Live from Boulder 1 - Fiore and Hsieh on Fractional Real Estate and Member Retention
*If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs.*
*Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds.*
*Yes, there is background, ambient noise. Tune it out. *
*In this first podcast, Paul Fiore - known as the founder of Digital Insight and CU Wallet - along with Sean Hsieh, founder and CEO of Concreit tell about Hseih’s app that will enable owning fractional shares in rental real estate. So, yes, the spelling of the company’s name is right.*
*Why such an app? Fiore explains that credit unions are seeing a huge outflow of deposits - mainly into investment vehicles that aren’t widely available at credit unions such as crypto, fractional real estate, robo stock trading. He believes that for credit unions to compete they have to get with the…
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Mar 15, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 242 Omar Jordan Coviance on Closing Loan Applications Faster, Smarter
*You don’t know **Coviance **- but you do know LenderClose and its founder** Omar Jordan**. *
*And now you know LenderClose has changed its name to Coviance.*
*Why? In the show Jordan tells why and he also talks a bit about what was involved in the name change.*
*Coviance is all about efficient processing which, generally, translate into faster lending decisions.*
*Looking forward Jordan is optimistic about the prospects for home equity loans and credit union marketshare. *
*Especially when borrowers get the faster decisioning that is integral to the Coviance approach.*
*Face facts: many credit unions are very, very slow in processing loan apps. Jordan explains why you don’t have to be and he also talks about business lost when processing speed lags.*
*Listen up.*
*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com*
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*And like this podcast on whatever service you…
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Mar 8, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 241 on What You Need to Know about Raising Capital with Sale Leaseback Deals
*Ask Affinity Federal Credit Union in New Jersey how it recently came up with over $50 million - in cash - to fund branch expansion.*
*Or maybe ask Wescom Central Credit Union in Pasadena, CA where it came up with $59 million in cash.*
*The answer is the same for both: they sold their headquarters building.*
*But that didn’t leave them homeless.*
*They both leased back their HQ in a transaction that has become increasingly common in for profit America. Called a sale leaseback it typically puts many millions of ready cash in the hands of the sellers who in turn sign leases in their buildings that typically run 20 or more years.*
*Details on both transactions are in **this **CuTimes story.*
*Clicking around I found **this **CuTimes story by **Ed Lopes** and Steve Eimert which offered up the nitty gritty of sale leasebacks. Their company is** CU Real Estate Solutions. *
*So we got them on the podcast to offer the details of a transaction that remains rare among credit unions - bu…
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Mar 1, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 240 David Martinez CIO Arlington Community CU on How Mid-sized CUs Can Thrive
*Arlington Community Federal Credit Union** - headquartered in Arlington VA and with assets just shy of $500 million - thought it had its growth plan set. It would merge with $246 million First Federal Credit Union (headquartered in adjacent Alexandria VA). But then the First Federal members **rejected **the plan.*
*So we invited **David Martinez**, CIO at Arlington Community, on the show to address a fundamental question: is there life for a $500 million institution?*
*Sure, the vast majority of credit unions are smaller than Arlington Community - but increasingly experts say that the minimum viable size for a credit union is $1 billion.*
*Spoiler alert: Martinez is here to tell why he believes Arlington Community has a bright future and it starts with knowing the community and serving that community.*
*Yes, that is the historic credit union success formula but listen to Martinez and he tells that it still is the way to success.*
*It’s an upbeat show.*
*Martinez also talks abo…
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Feb 21, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 239 David Metz CEO of Prizeout and Darlene Johnson, EVP of Suncoast Credit Union, on Value Upping Gift Cards
*Shazam, watch a $10 gift card - maybe one issued by retail goliath Amazon or perhaps WalMart - transform into a $13 gift card.*
*Can’t happen? Everybody knows alchemy is a hoax?*
*Meet Prizeout, an ad tech company that says it has the formula for valuing up gift cards when they hit a consumer’s hand.*
*On the show today is **David Metz**, CEO of **Prizeout **who offers the details of how Prizeout works its magic.*
*Also on the show is** Darlene Johnson**, an EVP with Suncoast Credit Union, a Florida behemoth with over $16 billion in assets. She is a Prizeout evangelist who sees Prizeout as a key tool in her credit union’s member acquisition strategies.*
*Suncoast also is one of nine credit unions that have formed a CUSO to bring Prizeout to more credit unions. Other founding credit unions of the CUSO include Interra Credit Union, MSU Federal Credit Union, Patelco Credit Union, Stanford Federal Credit Union, Credit Human, Langley Federal Credit Union, University Credit Union…
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Feb 20, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 9 with Kirk Kordeleski on Knowing Your Risk Tolerance
*Talk about Hatfields vs. McCoys. In the world of credit union c-suite retirement planning there are two major competing scenarios. There are SERPs based on whole life policies. And there are IULs, indexed universal life plans.*
*In this intro I am not going to tell you the difference. That’s because this is a complex topic and on the show is Kirk Kordeleski onetime Bethpage Federal Credit Union CEO and now an executive with **OM Financial Group** which specializes in c-suite retirement plans.*
*Kordeleski knows SERPs and he tells the fundamental differences between whole life SERPs and IULs and know that the differences can be substantial.*
*Are you already in a SERP or an IUL? Key advice from Kordeleski is to get an annual review of where you stand now. With credit union c suite salaries climbing and inflation roaring, where you really stand may not be where you had hoped to be. Get that review and get it soon. There probably still is time to take remedial steps to get your reti…
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Feb 15, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 238 Doug Brown President NCR Digital Banking on Financial Wellness as the Path to Young Member Recruitment
*Financial wellness + millennials and Gen Z = a huge opportunity for credit unions.*
*At least for the credit unions that approach wellness for that age cohort with the right tone of voice and mindset.*
*That’s the core advice offered in this show by** Doug Brown**, president NCR Digital Banking. Before that he was at FIS and before that, in 2007, he launched Bank of America’s mobile app.*
*Brown brings personal experience to this discussion because he has two adult children currently living at home - and, yes, he talks finances with them and in the process has picked up insights into how best to communicate about dollars and cents to younger generations.*
*His advice to credit unions is to get financial wellness tools - ones especially tailored to Gen Z and Millennials - built into the mobile app. That’s what NCR is offering and the reasoning is simple. Those age groups use phones throughout their waking hours. They are accustomed to notifications via the phone and they read…
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Feb 13, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Special Edition: NCUA's Loan Participation Revisions No. 2
*Welcome to Part 2 of the CU 2.0 dialogue on the NCUA’s proposed rule changes pertaining to loan participation and related topics.*
*The part 1 podcast featured Kirk Drake, wearing his Quilo hat, and Boris, a Quilo co-founder. There’s a **link **to that show in the notes. *
*Here’s a **link **to NCUA’s lengthy proposed rule changes. *
*That same link includes a box for submitting comments. As you will hear in this new show - round 2 - both Kirk Drake and **Brian Lauer**, a Pennsylvania lawyer who also is attorney for NACUSO, the trade association for many CUSOs.*
*Lauer has prepared draft comments on the rule - there’s a **link **in the show notes. Use this as a starter for your own comments and get them in by February 28.*
*These rules - to repeat - are intended to bring about substantial changes in the credit union world’s loan participations. Very possibly big winners will be small and medium sized credit unions. Fintechs, too, may come out way ahead.*
*Are there t…
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Feb 8, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 237 Union Credit on RIP for Loan Apps
*You probably have heard about CuneXus, the CUNA Mutual company that helps a credit union sort through its members and determine which offers - car loans, personal loans, credit cards and more - this member is eligible for without filling out a loan application.*
*Read the last six words again: without filling out a loan application.*
*Think about it: most credit unions already have all the data they need on hand to approve or deny a member’s request for credit. So why not tell the member what he/she is eligible for?*
*It works. Your CU 2.0 Podcast host personally received a letter from his principal credit union that told me I was eligible for a bunch of things including a credit card. It occurred to me I had no credit card with the institution so why not? Basically I said I’d take it and, whoosh, it arrived.*
*On my desk now is another letter from that CU offering me my choice of a car loan, a personal loan, a checking line of credit, or an auto refinance deal.*
*See how thi…
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Feb 1, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 236 Attorney Henry Meier On Four Huge Threats You Just May Be Ignoring
Just when you start to think that things are settling down in credit union land - talk of recession is vanishing, inflation seems to be getting tamed, most experts expect a healthy uptick in mortgages come Spring and even new car sales are growing - here is Henry Meier, onetime general counsel of the New York Credit Union Association with what he believes are big threats to credit unions that many executives just are overlooking.
Spoiler alert: Meier is right.
He outlined his concerns in a 10 point manifesto in Credit Union Times - link in the show notes - but in this show we will drill into what I see as the really worrisome four. What are they?
* Lawyers have their eyes on your website and although there have been some suits, brace yourself for more - and more that are better crafted which means they just may win favor from judges. The industry pay out bigtime to settle ADA suits with respect to ATMs. Could we be in for a replay with websites? Meier offers thoughtful comment, so…
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Jan 31, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Special Edition: NCUA's Loan Participation Revisions
*The big news out of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is that the agency has proposed significant changes to its regulation regarding loan participation - and all the details are available to be read in the **Federal Register.** There’s a link in the show notes and that same link takes you to where NCUA offers guidelines for submitting comments on the proposal.*
*Understand, the language of the proposal is murky - it’s written in inside the Beltway lawyerese. *
*That’s why we asked **Kirk Drake**, founder of CU2.0 and also chief revenue officer at **Quilo**, an innovative loan syndication platform, to tell what the NCUA is trying to do here.*
*Joining him is Quilo co-founder** Boris Fuzayloff**, a veteran payments pioneer.*
*The bottomline: the NCUA seems to be trying to update its regs to reflect today’s digital payments world, a place where it suddenly has become easy to put loans out for syndication. What used to take a dozen phone calls now takes a few mo…
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Jan 25, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 235 Peter Barnard CUSO rkGoBig on Helping Small Credit Unions Succeed
*Ignite and preserve. Right there is the motto of rkGoBig, a CUSO with a singular focus: helping smaller credit unions survive and indeed prosper.*
*That seems a Sysephean task?*
*Peter **Barnard**. CEO of CUSO **rkGoBi**g, firmly believes that cooperation among credit unions is a fast way to help more small credit unions survive.*
*To that end, rkGoBig offers a basket of services include a compliance toolkit - a real help when dealing with the regulator - credit cards, a shared core, card processing, shared back office processing and, well, you get the picture: rkGoBig has the tools a 21st century credit union needs to operate efficiently and effectively.*
*The biggest credit union presently served by rkGoBig is just shy of $400 million in assets.*
*Listen up to this inspiring story of helping the small survive.*
*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com*
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Jan 24, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 8 with Kirk Kordeleski on Why Low Pay for the CEO Sets Your CU on a Path of Failure
*Pick a number and here’s the question: over the last 11 years CEO pay in credit unions has gone up 2% per year, 5% per year, or greater than 10% per year?*
*Take a deep breath now. *
*The answer is 7.5%, said Kirk Kordleski, past CEO of Bethpage Credit Union, one of the nation’s biggest, and now a consultant specializing in retirement plans with OM Financial.*
*If that number rocks you, grab tight now because in this podcast Kordeleski explains why the CEO who can successfully lead your credit union in today’s hyper competitive marketplace will need that big annual raise and also why he or she is well worth the money.*
*The reason for both is competition. The number of CEO openings in credit unions is growing and that’s because Baby Boomers (born in the 1946 - 1964 span) are fast retiring.*
*There’s also just a lot more competition and a good CEO needs a range of skills. The complexity of the job just is so much greater now than it was a generation ago.*
*Open your che…
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Jan 18, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 233 Mac Thompson White Clay on Creating More Member Successes, Really!
*Are you helping your members succeed?*
*Before answering know a couple things. Banks - definitionally - are in business to benefit their shareholders.*
*A credit union, says **Mac Thompson**, founder and president of **White Clay**, which uses data analytics to help deliver more member successes, has as its mission member success.*
*But it’s the getting there that is the journey.*
*To do it, said Thompson, many credit unions find themselves on a cultural makeover - and that’s not always easy and rarely is fast.*
*Now, you might think that a podcast with a data analytics geek would be a fast jump into propellerhead thinking.*
*You won’t find that in this show.*
*But you will hear ways to consistently create more of the member successes that are the measure of a credit union.*
*Listen up.*
*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com*
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*And like thi…
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Jan 11, 2023
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 234 Anthony Dedousis CEO Revival Homes on ADUs and Our Housing Crises
*Quick now, no Googling, what’s an ADU?*
*In the next half hour you will learn a lot about ADUs - which, by the way, are accessory dwelling units and recently California law has made it much easier to site an ADU on an existing homesite.*
*That’s good because California’s homeless crisis only worsens and one step in the right direction is more housing. *
*Other parts of the country - from Portland OR to Connecticut and Austin TX - also are embracing ADUs.*
*By the way, you surely have heard other names for ADUs. They’ve been called granny flats, casitas, in-law units, and lots more. Thy have also been part of the housing scene for many decades but what’s happening now is a regularization of the concept.*
*Enter** Anthony Dedousis**, founder and CEO of **Revival Homes** in Los Angeles, which he created to help more homeowners more easily fund and build ADUs on their property. Revival Homes does this in two ways. It has a vetted roster of contractors and it also wants to h…
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Dec 27, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 232 Ken Kondo Mahalo Banking on Real Innovation in Mobile Banking
Name the last big innovation in mobile banking.
No rush.
It's understandable if you are stumped because, well, there really haven't been many in the past half dozen years.
Ken Kondo, newly appointed chief innovation officer at Troy, Mich. based Maholo Banking, is on the show to tell his plan for upping innovation in mobile banking.
And he believes more innovation is critical if credit unions are to win more members from the younger demographics.
Quick now, do you know what a magic eight ball is in tech speak? Or Konami Code?
If you do, know that you will hear Kondo's take on these topics. And if you don't know, know you are going to have fun learning how such concepts just might help credit union code writers innovate more.
How about the so-called fart* feature built into Tesla cars - know about that? Kondo loves the outrageous, unexpected nature of the feature - and believes it is features like that will help credit unions create excitement for their mobile baking apps.
By now…
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Dec 20, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast News Flash: Martin Walker on Fintech Funding, CUSOs and More
*Here’s the blunt news: the market for mergers and acquisitions involving fintechs now is very, very slow.*
*What’s that mean for credit unions, CUSOs, and fintechs themselves?*
*On the show is **Martin Walker**, an executive with both Next Level Ventures and Curql which puts him at the epicenter of fintech funding especially in the credit union/CUSO sphere.*
*A past podcast guest - link to that **show **in the show notes - Walker brings some very good news but not all of it is good.*
*The IPO market, for instance, is comatose, he says.*
*But he is very upbeat that there is a lot of capital available for early stage fintechs - especially ones with tools to help credit unions bring in more deposits and operate more efficiently in today’s highly competitive environment.*
*If you have 15 minutes, you’ll learn what you need to know about this topic.*
*Listen up.*
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*Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorshi…
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Dec 19, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 231 Amy Travers NA Security on Voice Biometrics
Here’s a secret you don’t know about the CU 2.0 Podcast. Just about in every show there are some minutes of talk before the show really starts Most shows do similar. It helps get the guest comfortable and, importantly, it lets the host do a sound check to make sure all is working.
Those minutes almost always are deleted in editing.
Not in this show with Amy Travers, a regional vice president with NA Security focused on biometrics - voice - in financial services. That’s because we started by chatting about her personal background, growing up in County Donegal in the northwest of Ireland and earning degrees at the Institute of Technology in Sligo. And then…she’s in Florida where she founds a contact center company.
Understand that a good part of what her present employer does is equip contact centers to help authenticate incoming callers and to blow an alerting whistle if the caller seems fraudulent.
Travers knows that work from the inside.
Nowadays, the NA tools - which g…
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Dec 14, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 230 Tailwind's Andrew Tull on Humanizing Software + Software as a Relationship
Discover software as a relationship.
That’s the tagline used by Austin TX based Tailwind which says it thrives on handling the knottiest IT problems and also that it is human based - and isn’t always so in IT.
On the show today is partner Andrew Tull who explains exactly what Tailwind means when it talks about software as a relationship and also about how Tailwind genuinely takes the people side of the business to heart.
A key point Tull makes is that one size fits all simply does not work when it comes to credit union tech. Many - most - credit unions are very individual and so are their memberships. That’s why the human part of the calculus has to come into play and it’s what Tailwind does well, says Tull.
Tull also hosts a video blog show called Humanizing Software - there’s a link in the show notes. He takes very seriously the concept that humans are involved in software and they need to be.
You don’t have to guess that he is rooting for Neo in the Matrix, do you n…
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Dec 7, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 229 Sean Daly CEO of People's Credit Union on Embracing the Cloud
In the cloud. That’s is where People’s Credit Union CEO Sean Daly shifted much of the IT of the approximately $600 million in assets institution and in this podcast he tells why, how it went, and what the early benefits are.
In this show you will often hear the initials AWS - Amazon Web Services. Yep. Amazon. Aside from being a giant retailer, it is one of the biggest players in providing cloud services and tools to companies.
Daly is a big fan of AWS. He tells why in the show.
Daly also tells how to persuade a board to go into the cloud.
And how to bring employees - including existing IT staff - along on the journey.
He is very candid about difficulties suffered, lessons learned - and he also tells of the benefits to People’s and its members.
This is not a show only for propeller heads. It’s plenty down to earth.
Mention is made in the show of Arkatechture, previous guest on the show - episode 223, link in the show notes.
If you crave more details about this IT project…
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Dec 1, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 7 with Kirk Kordeleski on Revisiting a Now Out of Date SERP or a 457F Retirement Package
*Lucky you. You negotiated a satisfactory SERP (Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan) or maybe it was a 457F bonus package.*
*Just one problem: Ballooning prices in today’s economy coupled with the fast paced growth many credit unions have experienced in the past five years probably have rendered those plans as woefully too small.*
*Remember, the standard goal of much retirement planning is to give the retired executive an income equal to about 65% of his/her last three years’ income.*
*Plans that fall well shy of that mark make for unhappy retirees.*
*Such plans - if offered in a package to help hire new c-suite executives - will likely fall significantly short of offers from other suitors.*
*Are you stuck with that outdated plan? In this episode of Money Talks, Kirk Kordeleski, past CEO of Bethpage Credit Union, one of the nation’s biggest, and now a consultant specializing in retirement plans with OM Financial.*
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*Want to know more about SERPs - or other matters ra…
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Nov 30, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 228 Vaneet Grewal Ovation CXM on Fixing Your Broken Member Journeys
You know about CRM. Now learn about CXM, a new approach to knowing and managing your members' journeys.
OvationCXM is on the show today and Vaneet Grewal, head of banking and financial services, is here to tell us about the emerging field of CXM, customer experience management.
Here's what OvationCXM says about what it does: "OvationCXM is the first platform to take your uncoordinated internal, customer and third-party interactions and turn them into exceptional journeys in the moment, start to finish. No rearchitecture required."
Understand: CXM is not CRM. CRM is what Salesforce and many more companies do. With CXM, CRM is an element in what it manages but there are many more pieces of data that go into its management of the customer's journey or, put in credit union speak, the member's journey.
This is still early days in CXM but just think about how many touch points today's member has with a credit union. In years past the touchpoint was the branch and maybe a phone. Now added…
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Nov 21, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 227 Amarildo Gjondrekaj Head of Harness FI Tells How To Give Old Credit Cards New Powers
Amarildo is head of Harness FI and, yes, he has a last name that you will hear him pronounce in the opening seconds of the podcast.
Here's the good news about what Amarildo - a longtime Mastercard employee turned fintech exec (and he talks about that transition) - and his team are doing at Harness giving credit unions tools that let them add new powers to old credit cards.
Such as? Harness - literally in days - created a tool that allowed participating institutions to implement a program where members could opt in to allow their credit card to donate money to be dispensed in assistance for victims of California's wild fires.
They have similar tools for hurricane and tornado relief programs.
More broadly, what Harness has are tools that let credit card issuers enable members to roundup purchases to help fund local charities - participating credit unions designate the eligible charities - and also to add gamification to further help keep users using their credit cards.
It gets bette…
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Nov 16, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 226 David Benizri CEO Housetable on Smarter Home Renovation Loans
People are staying in their homes longer. That is fact.
One upshot is that more homeowners are planning more ambitious home renovation projects.
But many have had problems getting a loan for the full amount needed - a kitchen remodel for instance can cost upwards of $30,000.
Enter Housetable, a New York based startup that is bringing multiple new ideas to this issue. The big idea: it will lend on the after renovation value of the home. That can put significantly more money on the table to fund this project.
Housetable also will monitor the renovation as it proceeds - via its app and video - and it handles disbursements to the contractor and, of course, it checks on the updated status of the project before issuing a payment.
Housetable implements quickly at a credit union. CEO David Benizri said that it typically takes one to two months.
Benizri added that he sees Housetable working well in big credit unions but also institutions as small as $50 million. There is very little lift…
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Nov 15, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 6 with Kirk Kordeleski on How to Persuade a Board on Executive Retirement Packages
Here is where the pedal hits the metal. In this show credit union executive retirement compensation expert Kirk Kordeleski tells how the credit union senior executives can persuade their board to agree to market rate retirement plans that may well involve multiple millions of dollars for the executive team.
That's big money. It takes a smart argument to persuade. Kordeleski tells the argument and, in a bonus, he tells how he in fact convinced the board of Bethpage Credit Union to enact a market rate retirement plan for Kordeleski and other senior executives.
This is not blue sky hypothesizing. This is a genuine playbook. Kordeleski has been in these trenches - and he's here to report on what worked.
But the show isn't just for senior credit union executives. Board members too need to listen, to discover how compensation at credit unions with a strategy for success have to come together.
Listen up.
Want to know more about SERPs - or other matters raised in this podcast? Email Korde…
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Nov 9, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 225 Total Expert's James White on Supercharging Member Engagement
James White believes that the answer is in the data and he insists that credit unions already have plenty of data to fuel enormous leaps in member engagement. And the company where he now works -*Total Expert* where he is industry principal for banks and credit unions - has plenty of tools to help a credit union get with 21st century marketing techniques.
Lots of credit unions still are skittish about newstyle marketing but face reality: competitors from Bank of America to Apple to Venmo all are winning increasing shares of member business and they are doing it by unleashing contemporary marketing tools.
Case in point: do you know when a member lists his/her house for sale? You should because that is a prime moment to contact that member and explore his interest in a new mortgage. Total Expert has tools that make this easy and White tells about them.
Another case: what is your institution doing to prepare for an enormous transfer of wealth in the coming years as Baby Boomers die? Wi…
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Nov 3, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 5 Kirk Kordeleski on the Five Generations of Credit Union Leaders, Their Compensation, and Surviving Recession
Today's credit union leadership - especially at the nation's best and biggest credit unions- is professional and deeply versed in financial services. But that wasn't always so in credit union land. This episode opens with Kirk Kordeleski - onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, one of the nation's biggest, and now an executive at OM Financial Group, which specializes in SERPs which are building block retirement plans for key credit union executives - giving us a history lesson on the five generations of credit union leadership. He starts way back when everybody was a volunteer and takes us to today where we now are moving into a sixth generation of post Baby Boomer leadership.
Then we take up what has become a challenge in many credit unions' budgeting: payroll in general and executive salaries and total comp in particular. What Kordeleski says boils down to this: in most cases nowadays you get what you pay for.
And today credit unions need exceptional leadership as we shift i…
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Nov 2, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 224 Peter Maher Open Banking Solutions On Why They Are Offering A Free Core System
Free. That's a price you don't hear for a core system - particularly not one with over 100 installations globally and with a pedigree that includes executives who played central roles in bringing the DNA core to market and that core today is integral to Fiserv's product line.
The company is Open Banking Solutions and you haven't heard of it or its core because its cloud-based core is in use in much of Latin America. Now it is coming to the US.
Also in the product mix is mobile first digital banking, an automated collections tool, and business intelligence and reporting tools.
Peter Maher, chief commercial officer, added that the company's target market are credit unions between $50 million and $500 million in asset size.
The reason? Many of those institutions are stuck using outdated cores that just don't let these credit unions keep pace with market needs.
He insisted the Open Banking Solutions' product suite is exactly the fix those credit unions need.
Keep in mind, too, that t…
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Oct 26, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 223 Arkatechture's Jamie Jackson on What You Need to Know About Your Data
There's gold in them there hills.
That used to be the rallying cry for miners especially in the Southwest and California but listen closely in CU c-suites today and you may here a new cry: There's gold in our data.
Wait, you may be shouting. Didn't all those big data projects at credit unions a decade ago fizzle out? Well, maybe not all...but a lot did.
Today however is very different. There is a lot more data from a lot more sources. And there also is exponentially more computing power and tools for crunching that data.
Meet Jamie Jackson, CEO and founder of Arkatechture, a CUSO with a data analytics focus.
Here's what Arkatechture does: It "helps credit unions streamline the collection, cleansing, analysis, and sharing of data for the purposes of operational excellence, business intelligence and predictive analytics."
Should you close that branch? Should you shut down car refinancing? What will be the impacts of rising interest rates on your HELOC business? And how many members…
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Oct 24, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks Episode 4 Kirk Kordeleski on Interest Rates and A Credit Union's Executive Retirement Plan
The stark reality is that as interest rates edge up - and already in much of Europe inflation has climbed above 10% in the year and interest rates will follow - a fresh new look is being given credit union executive retirement plans.
It is just is exponentially harder - and more expensive - to plan retirement in a high inflation world.
Accept that funding such plans will cost more. Maybe a lot more.
But not funding it has its own costs starting with loss of executive talent and difficulty in recruiting new talent.
In this show, Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, one of the nation's biggest, and now an executive at OM Financial Group, which specializes in SERPs which are building block retirement plans for key credit union executives, untangles the fast changing environment for executive retirement planning and he looks at it from the viewpoint both of senior execs but also the board members who will have to authorize such plans.
No one talks about incom…
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Oct 19, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 222 Kris Kovacs Constellation on How It Can Be Easy for a Credit Union to Add the Tech It Needs to Compete
You know what we are talking about? Then you have to get to know Kris Kovacs, CEO of Constellation, a CUSO birthed to make it easy for a credit union to add the tech it wants, from AI tools to crypto to pretty much whatever you imagine because Constellation is open to adding fintech tools that its customers want.
This is a smashing of the technology walls that, for decades, have created moats around credit unions that kept them - and their members - removed from the tech they truly wanted.
Sounds like magic? It kind of is and in the show today Kovacs - himself a longtime credit union executive until he left to launch Constellation - explains exactly what Constellation does and how.
Along the way he gives a strong endorsement for going the CUSO route - he has never had investors at his door demanding quick sales now! Constellation enjoyed the time to develop the tools and services it knew credit unions wanted and needed.
Kovacs also tells why credit unions just may be a perfect cust…
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Oct 12, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 221 Jaime Marks Credit Union Cheerleader
Ask Jaime Marks how she sees her role in the credit union universe and her answer comes fast: cheerleader.
She is a true believer in the credit union mission and the credit union difference.
Most recently she has been a vice president at California Credit Union but along the way she has worked at CoastHills Credit Union, also Ent Credit Union.
Now buckle up for a wide ranging discussion that explores where credit unions are heading.
Central to that voyage is the credit union's culture and, quick question, in a few words what is the culture of your credit union?
Clichés don't score. Neither do hollow words. What - really - is the essence of the culture?
In this discussion she references a recent American Banker article that names the best credit unions to work for.
We also talk about State Employees Credit Union which has announced its appointment of a Chief Culture Officer.
When the nation's second biggest credit union tabs culture as critical to succeed, that's a hint that th…
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Oct 5, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 220 Joseariel Gomez Shastic on IPA (Intelligent Process Automation)
You may think IPA is a particular kind of craft beer but Joseariel Gomez, CEO of Shastic, is on the show today to tell all you don't know but need to know about Intelligent Process Automation. Along the way he also tells about RPA, robotic process automation.
What Shastic does is develop tools that let credit unions speed up many, many processes - everything from processing home mortgage loan applications through collections. Much that occurs in these functions is drudgery and, in many credit unions, the processes are very, very slow, manly because data is siloed and it had never been created for easy sharing across internal credit union functions.
What benefit does Shastic provide its credit union customers? Gomez did not hesitate in offering his one word answer: Speed.
Face it, we are in a now culture. Consumers want answers now, not tomorrow. Tomorrow often is too late. Members grow dissatisfied. Speed has become a crucial business tool.
Credit unions frankly often lag at speed.…
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Sep 28, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 219 Todd Anderson LendingArts on the Gold in Auto Refinancing
Cars are more expensive than ever. New cars are hard to find in a marketplace ravaged by supply chain bottlenecks. Consumers are keeping their cars for ever longer terms.
Add that up and one conclusion is that the new car financing marketplace is slowing.
But another conclusion is that there just may be an emerging market opportunity in car refinancing.
It's a relatively new finance play. Many, many credit unions still aren't doing it. In this show, Todd Anderson, VP of lending at LendingArts, tells about the benefits, for credit unions and their members alike, in offering car refinancing.
He also tells how LendingArts may help bring new members into a credit union via an auto refinance loan.
Anderson, himself a longtime credit union employee before joining LendingArts, understands how credit unions think - and he talks us through how and why car refinancing in fact is a great tool for credit unions, especially now.
Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help…
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Sep 21, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 218 on Larky and the Power of Push Notifications to Engage Members
Who opens email anymore and as for phoning members, forget about it.
Diminishing returns from once mainline communication channels have many credit unions pulling their hair out in frustration.
Enter Larky. Larky delivers context appropriate push notifications from inside the credit union mobile app. It's not SMS, these are notifications in the mobile banking app.
In fact Larky itself is invisible to the member.
What kinds of notifications are available? They are customized by and for the credit union. It might be info about auto loans if a member is inside a car dealership. Or it might be a 5% discount on Culver ice cream or burgers in Grand Rapids MI when a member uses an MSUFCU Visa card to make the purchase.
Tap rates, as you will hear in the show, are staggeringly high.
On the show to offer the details about Larky are CEO Gregg Hammerman and Ami Iceman Haueter, Chief Research and Digital Experience Officer at MSU Federal Credit Union.
Incidentally, Larky is another company…
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Sep 14, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 217 Kent Lugrand CEO of InTouch Credit Union on Rewards Innovation and a Lot More
This is a different kind of podcast. Unlike just about any other in the series.
It started normally enough. An email came in from a PR person offering Kent Lugrand, CEO of the $1 billion InTouch Credit Union in Texas, as a guest to discuss the institution's high yield checking account which provides members a way to earn up to 4% interest on deposits if they put $2500 per month on their debit card.
Then I discovered that InTouch has made a $1 million pledge to fund food banks for the hungry and needy in DFW, Las Vegas, and Detroit, its three chief regions. Money to fund this comes from a share of revenues generated by credit and debit card usage and also new loans.
The combination of food for the hungry and more interest for members seemed interesting and relevant enough to warrant inviting Lugrand to guest.
But we get a whole lot more than that. For instance: Lugrand started his career as a stockbroker and for some years he made the very big bucks. He had everything he wanted to b…
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Sep 12, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Kirk Kordeleski Money Talks Episode 3: CUES and Its Executive Compensation Bombshell
The latest CUES executive compensation numbers for credit union executives are out and this explosion still reverberates across the industry. Total median executive comp in 2022 was up 14.9%.
For CEOs the total median compensation was $515,602.
Understand: those numbers are from a time when inflation was not a concern and most workers in most industries were happy to get a 2 or 3% pay hike.
Now every worker wants a big pay hike to stay even with inflation. You can bet credit union c-suiters will too.
How did this happen in the credit union c-suite? And what does it mean for credit union exec comp committees on the board and indeed for all other executives in a credit union?
On today's show to explain what's going on and to offer predictions about what this means for your pay packet is Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, one of the nation's biggest, and now an executive at OM Financial Group, which specializes in SERPs which are building block retirement…
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Sep 7, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 216 Chad Heese Chief Lending Officer Rogue Credit Union
What a difference a year makes.
A year ago the typical credit union was awash in deposits - much of it coming in via stimulus money - and accordingly there was a rush to get that money back out on the streets working. that meant loans.
In mid 2022, the deposit glut is history for most credit unions.
So what happening on the lending side?
Meet Chad Heese, chief lending officer at $3.7 billion Rogue Credit Union in Oregon. He spends his days pondering how to profitably put Rogue's cash on hand to work and in this podcast he shares a range of ideas, some quite unconventional.
Heese also recounts how he got started on his career in financial services and he traces it back to a time when he called an HR person at a bank twice weekly for months before he even got an interview.
But when he did get that interview he got the job and now he has almost 20 years of service at credit unions along with a few starter years at banks. His is an intriguing job history and that's where we start the…
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Aug 31, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast 215 Robert Johnston CEO of Adlumin on Cyber War and Your Credit Union
Robert Johnston was a Marine and that is where he honed his skills at waging war in the cyber dimension - and you better believe that is where a lot of warfare now happens, from Russia knocking out ATMs in neighboring countries through nation state hackers targeting financial institutions, both to fuel widespread anxiety and simply to plunder others' money.
Johnston has a pedigree at this. He led the investigation into the Russian Intelligence Service breach of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 and before that he worked on the hack of the Joint Chiefs of Staff email in 2015. That is cyber war at its highest levels.
Nowadays Johnston and Adlumin, the company he co-founded and where he serves as CEO, is an active player in helping credit unions in particular bolster their cyber security and that means dealing with everything from Denial of Service Attacks (DDos) through Ransomware, which is today's flavor of the moment. Along the way Johnston also works with helping credit unio…
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Aug 29, 2022
CU 2.0 News Flash A Quick Payments News Recap with Jason Bohrer of the US Payments Forum
Quick now, are you current on what's happening in the fast changing payments universe? Can you ace a pop quiz on the hot topics in payments such as
* Contactless payments’ role in a post-pandemic economy (Tap to Pay, Digital Wallets, etc.)
· Faster payments and key considerations for the FedNow service
· Emerging payments fraud concerns
· QR codes and alternative payment rails
· Credit card trends and the travel spending resurgence
Do you have a half hour? If you do listen up to Jason Bohrer of the US Payments Forum who gives us a quick update of the need to know headlines in today’s payments news.
Listen up
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Aug 24, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 214 Tom Shen, Malauzai Founder and Fintech OG
Tom Shen is a fintech OG, one of the originals who got his start in the industry 40 years ago when it was still called just financial services.
He's had glittering successes. He was EVP at Digital Insight when Intuit bought it for $1.33 billion in 2007. Earlier he founded Software Dynamics Inc. (SDI). More recently he founded mobile app developer Malauzai which was bought in 2018 by Finastra.
Now he is an active investor and a board member of five companies, including Sensibill and ZSuite, both of which have been featured on this podcast.
In this show Shen revisits his earlier days in fintech but - crucially - he spells out in detail what a fintech needs to know to work successfully with credit unions and also what a credit union executive needs to know to work successfully with fintechs.
His advice is sound, it's levelheaded and, importantly, it's rooted both in what worked in the past and what he sees working today.
Listen and you will hear pointed advice that says credit union…
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Aug 22, 2022
CU 2.0 News Flash Pablo DeFilippi of Inclusiv on Their Deal with QCash
Ask Pablo DeFilippi, an executive with Inclusiv, the trade group for CDFI credit unions, why they did a deal with QCash, the fintech birthed to facilitate making small dollar loans quickly to credit union members, without reference to credit scores, and his answer boils down to this: It's the CDFI mission.
Members have financial needs, many turn to very high interest alternatives such as payday loans. For many of them QCash is the better option.
QCash also is automated and the process happens online. It's also fast. Decisions are made within 60 seconds.
A member has a life event - a blown car water pump, maybe it's an urgent need for dental work, or perhaps it's that eviction if the landlord doesn't get a chunk of cash. When before a credit union might have had to turn that member away, now QCash gives the member an option.
It's perfect with Inclusiv.
You may remember you heard DeFilippi on this show before. You are right. Here is his 2020 episode.
And here's a link to a 2022 sho…
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Aug 17, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 2013 Evan Bush Statflo on Compliant Texting Tools for Credit Unions
Your members text.
Especially your younger members but today, really, everybody texts.
That means your employees text too.
So why can't your employees text members with questions and offer them help. pointers, suggestions?
You say there would be compliance questions.
Meet Statflo, a company that specializes in one thing: compliant texting software and it also specializes in tools for credit unions.
Is it hard to get started with Statlo?
Listen to this podcast with Evan Bush, head of sales and partnerships at Staflo, who explains that in fact it is easy to get started using Statflo's tools and a credit union also gets to pick the pricing plan that works best for it. How easy is that?
A Statflo special ingredient is that its texting is done by human beings, not AI, and those human beings work in your branches, using tools and techniques developed by Statflo to get maximal results from texting.
Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast…
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Aug 10, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 212 How $130mil River City FCU Became a Small Business Lender
Talk about miracles.
River City FCU in San Antonio knew it wanted to make small business loans - many of its members owned and/or worked in small businesses - and you have to know how hard it is for any small business to snare a loan. Then up the degree of difficulty if the small business is minority owned (and River City's membership is majority Hispanic).
How can those typically small loans be profitably made?
And then the miracle happened.
Compliance Systems, a provider of compliance documentation tools, realized that CDFI credit unions - community development FIs - were looking for ways to get more involved in business lending.
Along the way Hawthorn River, a developer of community banking software, hopped into the action.
So did IMM, a develop of e signature and digital transaction tools.
For Jeff Ivey, CEO of River City FCU it was put up or shut up time and he did not blink. He was all in.
The exceptional deal sweetener - Compliance Systems, IMM, and Hawthorn River agreed…
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Aug 3, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 211 Chris Doner CEO Access Softek on Why You Need a Robo-Advisor
A machine just maybe can pick stocks better than a human - and just maybe credit unions can augment their investment services by offering a new robo-advisor service from longtime fintech Access Softek, a 36 year-old Berkeley CA based fintech that offers online and mobile banking and more to hundreds of FIs.
Now Access Softek founder and CEO Chris Doner wants to put a robo-advisor service as well as self-directed brokerage tools in the credit union investment toolkit.
The timing couldn't be better. With inflation galloping, cash in a savings account increasingly looks like a money losing proposition and, for sure, some members will be investigating shifting money out of savings accounts and into stocks - which often means shifting that cash out of the credit union and into another kind of institution.
That gets more perilous because many of those institutions already offer things that look like checking accounts.
Not only might member wallet share be lost it might come close to vani…
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Aug 1, 2022
CU 2.0 News Flash Chris Otey on H.R, 6889 The Credit Union Board Modernization Act
Now the US Congress is weighing in on credit union boards and Chris Otey, an executive with CU 2.0 but importantly for this podcast, board chair at South Bay Credit Union in California, tells what he likes about the H. R. 6889, the Credit Union Board Modernization Act, which now has been voted out of committee and will come up for a vote in the full House.
The bill has bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.
CUNA has indicated support. Ditto NAFCU.
What would it do? It's narrowly focused legislation that would allow most credit union boards to meet six times annually rather than the currently mandated twelve.
That's it.
But Otey is plain that as board chair he thinks this would be a very good move. He tells why in the podcast.
Remember to tell your member of Congress and US Senators how you feel about H.R. 6889.
And, by the way, this podcast is a coming home for Otey. He was the guest in the first podcast - click here to listen. It's not exactly as big a landmark as the…
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Jul 27, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 210 Abrar Ahmed on id-go to prevent account takeover attacks
There has to be a better way. A safer way. There has to be a way to swiftly let a member re-set a password to gain entry to his/her accounts and to also defeat the account take-over criminals who specialize in seizing control of others' accounts and swiftly draining them.
Know this: the criminals who do this are an industry. They are professional. And they work fulltime at this.
Case in point: in the podcast Abrar Ahmed, CEO of Cozera Solutions, relates that criminal gangs will patiently call the same credit union, failing to win entry to the accounts they lust after but what they are doing is gathering intel. Pretty soon they know all the challenge questions and that means they also can know the answers.
A credit union needs to know how to fight back. id-go, a Cozera Solutions' tool, is one such way.
Cozera Solutions explains how it works its magic: "id-go replaces discoverable secrets like passwords and one-time passcodes with strong passwordless biometric authentication so there…
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Jul 25, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast News Flash: Credit Mountain, a CUSO for Consumers Who Want to Improve Their Credit
Tools, not tips, that's what those with damaged credit need to get themselves on the path to credit improvement.
Right there is the guiding credo of Credit Mountain, a new CUSO that Cornerstone Foundation, the charity wing of Cornerstone League, helped birth.
Credit Mountain successfully ran a pilot with seven credit unions and now is looking to offer its app through more credit unions.
In this podcast, you will hear from two Credit Mountain founders. The first that you will hear from is Frank Santoni, chief product officer. In a recent CU Times piece he is quoted as saying, “Credit Mountain blends the member-focus of credit unions with emerging technologies to deliver a personalized credit-improvement experience."
The other voice is Nathan Pinto, CEO.
Both founders are strong in the belief that credit unions have a unique role in helping those with damaged credit heal themselves - and they believe their tool will help in that journey.
Listen up.
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Jul 20, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 209 Landon Glenn, CEO of ASA, the New way for CUs and Fintechs to Connect
You are going to want to listen to this podcast twice. That's because the first time you hear it you will think, this can't be so. It can't be that easy for a credit union to connect with fintechs and have all the compliance and integration and all that complex and expensive stuff just, well, handled by this Utah based open banking company I have never heard of.
Then you will focus on this: Asa now is in a BECU sponsored fintech incubator and two things are true about BECU: it's a savvy, shrewd credit union and it knows technology. If BECU says Asa is worth a close look, count me as hunting for my spectacles.
In this podcast Asa founder and CEO Landon Glenn explains in considerable detail - but in a way friendly to non propeller heads - just how Asa works its magic act.
Note too: Glenn tells here about discounted pricing for credit unions that get in the Asa queue pronto. It really is a sweet deal for early adopters.
He also tells the benefits for the credit union - it gets to offe…
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Jul 19, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks with Kirk Kordeleski Episode 2: Executive Comp As a Strategic Initiative
Here's the big, immense, mind blowing idea that is central to this podcast: a competitive credit union has to view executive compensation as a strategic initiative, really no different from putting investment money into a CUSO or rolling out a spiffy new mobile banking app.
Understand this: NCUA regulations explicitly allow this allocation of capital.
And grasp this: unless a credit union has invested in creating a first-rate leadership team it won't have the staff capabilities to make the most of its capital investments in more traditional vehicles.
With leaders it's as simple as you get what you pay for...and the results your credit union gets are determined by the leaders you have invested in.
That's the bold idea put forth by Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, one of the nation's biggest, and now an executive at OM Financial Group, which specializes in SERPs which are building block retirement plans for key credit union executives.
In the podcast Ko…
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Jul 13, 2022
CU 2.0 Episode 208 Steve Bone Ongoing Operations on OGO's Future
Steve Bone, a longtime fintech executive, has been given the big chair at Ongoing Operations - aka OGO - and now he is running the CUSO's efforts in providing credit unions with Business Continuity Planning (BCP), Disaster Recovery, Information Security and more.
Bone is just a few weeks in the job - taking over from Kirk Drake (hear his recent podcast here) -- and he is full of optimistic ideas, from leading a shift to the cloud to helping small credit unions, even $100 million institutions and smaller, get world class information security services. That last is important as cyber criminals - including many abroad working in tandem with their governments - increasingly are targeting smaller FIs because most have porous security and, as Willie Sutton said, that's where the money is.
OGO customers of course want to hear this show but so do just about all credit unions because Bone here outlines a lot of the pressing, critical IT issues credit unions face.
Listen up.
Like what you ar…
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Jul 11, 2022
CU 2.0 News Flash Kirk Drake's Next Chapter - Life After OGO at Painted Hills
Kirk Drake spent 15+ years conceiving, building, and nurturing Ongoing Operations, a CUSO focused on disaster recovery, cloud services, and more. Now he is moving on.
He leaves OGO in good hands. The new leader there is Steve Bone, whose podcast focused on his vision for OGO posts Wednesday.
In this podcast, Drake reminisces a little about OGO, muses about the growing role of fintechs in the lives of credit unions and gets downright excited about Painted Hills, a CUSO he birthed and, definitely reads about Oregon's Painted Hills. Three credit unions - Rogue, Maps, and Carter - are already involved.
You want to hear about Painted Hills because it is intended to help solve credit union balance sheet problems that, right now, afflict many institutions.
Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it.…
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Jul 6, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Money Talks with Kirk Kordeleski Episode 1 "What's In Your Pay Packet?"
Are you earning enough at a credit union?
Here's the bad news: it's not easy to figure out the right answer to that question. Information about executive pay at credit unions is not easy to come by.
Here's the worse news: If a top exec at a credit union is underpaid, very probably most of the executive staff is too - and that is an institution that will find it ever harder to compete against the growing numbers of credit unions that get it, that understand they have to pay their execs appropriately if they want to attract talent.
Also know that exec compensation is not a matter of what's in your pay packet on Friday. Today's compensation has multiple moving parts and salary is just one piece. There also are long term incentive clauses, SERPs (supplemental executive retirement plans) and still more wrinkles.
This has all gotten very complicated.
Here to demystify executive compensation is Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, one of the nation's biggest, an…
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Jul 5, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast News Flash Peter Duffy on Merger Mania
You know the numbers. More credit unions are merging now and - crucially - more big credit unions are merging. I give you the marriage of $2,7 billion Capital Communications with $5.5 billion State Employees in Albany NY.
That takes your breath away.
But Peter Duffy, managing director at Piper Sandler, says in this podcast that - to paraphrase - you ain't seen nothing yet.
Size now is table stakes for survival in financial services.
Where once $100 million in assets was thought to be the scale needed for a credit union to survive, think much bigger now.
Duffy - a past guest on the podcast back in 2020 - shares his view from the field of what is happening in regard to mergers and credit unions and what to expect in a near-term future.
One takeaway: think merger and your institution. Because it just may be coming your way.
Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey…
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Jun 29, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 207 Michele Dean on Thinking Big on Long Island
Meet Michele Dean, CEO of Suffolk Federal Credit Union on Long Island in New York and that is a $1.5 billion institution.
That makes Dean one of few female CEOs of big credit unions - and in this podcast she talks about that. She also talks about her credit union mentor, Kirk Kordeleski, who hired her when he was at Bethpage and who gave her increasing responsibilities that put her on the path to senior leadership. You know Kordesleski. He's twice been a guest on this podcast, most recently talking about creative credit union compensation strategies. Link in the show notes.
Dean gets animated in talking about what Suffolk needs to do to stay competitive in a region where three credit unions are bigger, and one of them is much bigger.
How to survive? According to Dean it will be by harnessing smart tech and she is on the hunt for just that.
Proof: your podcast host met her a few months ago at an Austin Texas conference hosted by CU 2.0 - and, she says, she already is pursuing tech p…
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Jun 27, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast News Flash equipifi Closes $12 Mil Series A Financing Round
Close a Series A round and that's a sign the venture capital community believes this is a company with a definite future.
Congratulations to equipifi, which just closed a $12 million financing round.
In this podcast equipifi CEO Bryce Deeney - a December 2021 guest on the podcast in a full length show - tells why equipifi impressed VCs, what he sees as the company's future, and why credit unions need to be looking hard and now at deploying BNPL.
Yes, BNPL has recently hit some bumps in the road - I explore that in a recent CUInsight blog - but Deeney is confident that BNPL will win a place in the lending portfolio of most credit unions.
A key will be smart, savvy deployment. He talks about this.
Don't miss this podcast. You need to get BNPL on your institution's roadmap. Starting about now.
Listen up.
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Jun 23, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast News Flash Paul Fiore on Crypto and Credit Unions
You know Paul Fiore. He's the co-founder of Digital Insight - a grand dad of online banking and still in use at numerous credit unions today. Fiore has been on staff at credit unions, he also was a founder of CU Wallet, an innovative attempt to create a uniquely credit union mobile payments tool.
Now Fiore is spending much of his time noodling crypto and looking for ways for credit unions to play a part.
Know this: he still very much thinks credit unions need to offer crypto solutions to members. Otherwise, some members will just take their money elsewhere.
Also know that as this show was recorded in late June 2022, Bitcoin was down about 50% from a high a few months earlier. It had lost $20,000 in value in that span!
Fiore said he is holding his crypto and he adds that the big investors in crypto whom he knows are doing likewise. It's a down cycle for many markets, not just crypto, he says.
Don't panic.
And credit unions, he insists, still need to be investigating what crypto th…
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Jun 22, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 206 Fearing the Unknown Unknown with Risk Guru Amanda Cohen
Now it has become time to fear the unknown unknown.
That is a mantra of Amanda Cohen, the director of governance, risk and compliance products at Resolver, a developer of risk and security management software.
Consider this podcast an extension of the themes and realities brought up in last week's podcast with OGO's Tim Daugherty on BCP, Business Continuity Planning.
In this show with Cohen we are edging further into the wilderness of risk and pondering the risks that are out there but we just don't know them yet.
What hooey?
Indeed, just as talk of a pandemic was hooey in, say, December 2019. And talk of a war in middle Europe surely was ridiculous in February 2022.
And let's not even mention Hurricane Sandy, the Great Resignation and how about all those teller jobs you just can't seem to fill.
There are so many risks to contemplate nowadays and what Cohen presents is a disciplined perspective on how to come to grips with the risks you face whether you know them or not.
Listen…
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Jun 21, 2022
CU 2.0 News Flash Finalytics' Craig McLaughlin on Your Credit Union's Digital Maturity
Just how good is your institution at digital - and do know that today digital is the financial services superhighway.
Just maybe there is no need to guess about the maturity level.
That's because Finalytics has issued a free Digital Maturity Index - download here - where many credit unions share their own grades of how they are doing in terms of setting and achieving digital goals.
An upshot: credit unions have a long way to go before claiming excellence in this.
A piece of good news: many credit unions now seem more aware of their digital shortcomings than they perhaps did 10 years ago.
A key finding in this report: 84% of respondents acknowledged that digital is key to their institutional future.
Telling about the report - and the reactions received - is Finalytics CEO Craig McLaughlin.
Listen up.
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Jun 15, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 205 OGO's Tim Daugherty on Why You Need a Business Continuity Plan
The pandemic. The Great Resignation. Oregon wild fires. Tornados in Kansas. Face facts: it is tough to know how to deal with the next disaster that comes on your scene because who knows what that will be?
This century - from Katrina to the war in Ukraine - has been a wild ride filled with the unpredictable. It has become essential for every c-suiter to live by the Boy Scout motto, Be Prepared.
But that isn't easy when there's no knowing what you need to be prepared for.
This is where Tim Daugherty enters because in this podcast he tells what a credit union needs in a business continuity plan - and he also muses about the maybe 25% that do not have a realistic plan in place.
Joining him is Shane Butcher. a CU 2.0 Podcast veteran and director of CISO Services at OGO, who offers insight into where data and hackers figure into BCP.
Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcg…
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Jun 13, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast News Flash: The BNPL Update with SRM's Paul Davis
What a difference a few months make. Earlier this year the hot idea in CULand was BNPL, Buy Now Pay Later tools that allow a consumer to pay for an item - anything from a pizza at GoldBelly to a fancy exercise bike - over multiple months.
But now CFPB is asking BNPL players for lots of info about their practices, regulations are probably coming, and changes are afoot.
Add in sky high inflation - and its impacts on consumer wallets and also the cost of money - and suddenly, in some quarters, BNPL is just another four letter word, not to be uttered in polite company.
But let's not exaggerate. Just this week Apple announced its intent to get into BNPL.
Now are you confused? Here the unravel our confusions is Paul Davis from SRM who tells about a recently issued white paper on BNPL and its findings for credit unions.
Of particular note is that SRM sees a continuing role for BNPL but stresses that it be viewed not as a standalone but as a component of a holistic product set.
Davis als…
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Jun 9, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 204 Guy Messick on CUSOs, Fintechs, and Your Future
If you are a credit union executive you should be staying up at night chewing on this question: how do we survive in an age of relentless technology innovation and an increasing consumer acceptance of trusting their financial services to a fintech.
Tossin' and turnin'.
Guy Messick, a retired lawyer who now serves as CEO of NACUSO Business Services, is a man you want to hear.
NACUSO Business Services is a recent offshoot from NACUSO, the trade group for CUSOs and the credit unions that own and use them, and this offshoot has a specific focus which is to help credit unions and CUSOs hook up, especially CUSOs with a fintech focus.
Messick believes that CUSOs are a tool that potentially give credit unions an enormous marketplace advantage.
But he also knows that the two need a place to meet and mingle and get to know each other and each other's needs and wants. Thus the rise of NACUSO Business Services.
Its offering include a listing marketplace where many fintechs just might want to…
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Jun 8, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast News Flash: Eltropy Buys POPi/o: The Credit Union Communication Toolset Gets Bigger and Smarter
The news is that Eltropy, which provides compliant communication tools to 300+ credit unions including text and chat, has bought POPi/o, a leader in video banking which serves 100+ financial institutions.
This matters because - a stated goal of the company - is to provide community institutions the communication tools to compete with the biggest banks.
Communication with members should be a key credit union strength. And in 2022 that increasingly means digital.
Face to face is so 20th century.
In this podcast you will hear from Gene Pranger, executive chairman and founder of POPi/o. If his name is familiar it might be because he founded uGenius, a company bought by NCR in 2013.
Also on the show is Ashish Garg, founder and CEO of Eltropy.
This show is the debut of the CU 2.0 News Flash where we will put voices to breaking credit union news.
Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are availabl…
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Jun 1, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 203 Ted Brown Digital Onboarding and Deborah Colby One Nevada CU
Subtitle this podcast: what a fintech needs to know and do to succeed when working with credit unions.
Just maybe knowing how to do that is the special sauce that has powered Digital Onboarding - not that many years out of the DCU Fintech Innovation Center - to having 80+ customers in financial services, mainly credit unions.
And in this podcast Ted Brown, CEO of Digital Onboarding, tells where he got the idea for a company that provides tools that help credit unions turn members into raving fans who use many of the institution's tools, from direct deposit to automatic card payments.
By the way, the more such tools a member uses the stickier the relationship.
Oh...the idea that led to Digital Onboarding's core business mission came out of talks with DCU execs who shared pain points and wishes and, click, the light bulb went off in Brown's head and the company's business plan took shape.
Brown is candid in this podcast.
But so also is Deborah Colby, chief marketing officer at One…
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May 25, 2022
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 202 Kirk Kordeleski Tells If You Are Paid Enough
How much do you make? Is it enough?
A question for credit union boards: Are you paying your staff, especially c-suiters, enough to stay competitive in your marketplace?
We are in an era of intense competition for talent. You know how hard it has become to recruit to fill teller openings.
But do you know that a talent war is upending olden credit union beliefs about senior talent and compensation?
It is. And this will help decide what credit unions are left standing 10 years from now.
Telling us what is really going on in credit union executive compensation is Kirk Kordeleski, a onetime Bethpage CU CEO who now consults with credit unions about compensation especially SERP.
If you think that has to do with search exchange results pages you definitely need to hear this show.
That's Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans and they are emerging as a key tool in senior executive recruitment and retention at credit unions.
Kordeleski, by the way, is a past CU 2.0 Podcast guest - episo…
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May 18, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 201 Jeff Keltner Upstart on Smarter Lending
What happens when you throw a bunch of ex-Googlers into an office in San Mateo California?
Enter Upstart, a new breed lending company that helps financial institutions - credit unions very much included - make more, better unsecured loans and also do auto refinancing.
Upstart comes at lending with a focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and doing a lot of data crunching. Using Upstart's analytics an institution approves a higher percentage of loans - but also enjoys a lower default rate.
How can that be? According to Jeff Keltner, who heads business development at Upstart and is himself an ex Googler, lots of models plain look at the wrong data when making credit decisions.
Upstart has a page full of dazzling stats about how its models perform versus traditional lending models. Check it out.
20+ years ago I interviewed the Google founders for MIT's Technology Review magazine. Here's that story.
Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor…
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May 11, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 200 Visions FCU's Joe Keller on Credit Unions and Digital Assets
Tell me: do you have a VP of digital assets?
Didn't think so.
What exactly would such a position do?
Good question.
That's why you want to pay close attention to this podcast with Joe Keller whose title - drumroll please - is vice president of digital assets at Visions, a $6 billion credit union in upstate New York.
Right, Endicott, New York. Not Cambridge Mass or San Jose Ca.
Endicott. Which is pretty near Binghamton if that helps place it.
Keller, whose background involved big banks, consulting firms, and startups, might have seemed an unlikely credit union hire.
Keller was brought in by Visions CEO Ty Muse.
You'll hear Keller's first reaction to the suggestion - then discover what persuaded him that in fact this was exactly the job he wanted and why getting this right at a credit union genuinely matters.
Incidentally this show is about way more than Bitcoin. Lots more. We are deep into an embrace of digital assets and the institutions that get that now will have a head sta…
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May 4, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 199 Julie Markee EOS on Managing for Success
How good a manager are you?
Be honest now. Do you have a systematic way of measuring how effectively you are leading? Or is it all seat of the pants guesswork and, well, we have to be doing okay because the lights are still on?
Let's be honest. A lot of credit unions are going out of business in the next decade. A lot.
Right now there is a flood of fintechs into the credit union orbit and many come with promises and promise - but a lot of them won't be open in five years.
Ineffective management and leadership will figure into many of these demises.
Enter Julie Markee. She is a professional implementer - you haven't heard that title before, have you - with EOS, a company that teaches what it calls an entrepreneurial operating system (this EOS).
In this podcast Markee - who has worked with a number of companies in the credit union orbit - offers up a fast view of EOS' thinking and processes,
Case in point: are your executive meetings a productive use of time - or do you leave the…
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Apr 27, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 198 Seth Brickman QCash on How an Amazon Guy Found What He Wanted at a CUSO
Seth Brickman's career includes the US Navy (remember *Top Gun*? That was his motivator). Then he landed at Microsoft, he co-founded a startup Nicolette which builds tools to help parents make informed decisions about their baby's health, then he was at Amazon where he earned a patent involving Alexa and the content delivered to its screen.
Now he is at QCash, a CUSO created by Washington State Employees Credit Union (hear CU 2.0 Podcast #56 with past QCash CEO Ben Morales).
Why QCash? In the podcast Brickman tells why but the short version is that he had reached a point in his life where he wanted to do a lot of good and he joined QCash because it seemed to him to be the vehicle that could make that happen.
Listen to this section of the podcast multiple times. Take notes. You want to get highly talented techies into your organization. Brickman tells how.
At QCash, his dreams are big. The CUSO presently serves 50 credit unions. His goal is to double that number by year end.
Partly…
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Apr 20, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 197 Barb Lowman President CUNA Strategic Services on Credit Union Survival Skills 2022 Edition
Buckle up, this will be a bumpy ride.
That's because today's guest, Barb Lowman, president of CUNA Strategic Services has a huge portfolio of responsibilities - and she need to succeed to keep the credit union sector thriving.
We are in existential times. Break out your Kierkegaard because, honestly, the future of thousands of small and even mid sized credit unions does not look bright as pressures grow in technology, in regulation, in compliance and you know the lengthening list of issues that credit union CEOs wrestle with.
Lowman's job as CUNA Strategic Services is to find ways to give credit unions competitive edges and she is looking hard at technology. For instance: how can small credit unions have good, contemporary core systems? We talk about exactly that issue.
We talk a lot more tech too - but know we also talk executive compensation and board recruitment and those are issues that smaller credit unions in particular fight with.
Can you guess the typical CEO retirement pa…
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Apr 13, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 196 Dan Michaeli Glia on Digitizing Member Service and Credit Union Merger Mania
You know the numbers. In just the first three quarters of 2021 the NCUA approved 117 mergers and there will be more this year. In the mix is an ever growing number of credit union acquisitions of banks.
Here's the million dollar question: post merger how many members (or bank customers) will flee to a new institution. If you are going to have to learn how to deal with a new institution, why not make it a completely new institution?
Hmm.
Then I saw an article by Glia CEO Dan Michaeli in Credit Union Times that put out an entrancing thesis: "Credit unions undergoing a merger can benefit from modernizing member service with a digital-first approach.."
What if?
What if you not only can lose fewer members but get more wallet share?
Just maybe, says Michaeli, you can do exactly that.
In this podcast he talks about the 2022 credit union imperative to master digital member experience.
It no longer is nice to have. It's an authentic must have and do.
Incidentally, Michaeli also believ…
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Apr 6, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 195 Gordon Flammer Datava
Is the company name pronounced Datava, Data-va, or, what's your guess?
Just as the pronunciation of the company's name may prove slippery for many, so too is it difficult to neatly sum up exactly what Gordon Flammer's company does.
But I can tell you this: when American Heritage Credit Union worked with Flammer, it grew by $1 billion. Organic growth, Not acquisition. That has to grab your attention. Here's a link to a CUBroadcast show about this $1 billion miracle fueled by Flammer's unique way of looking at credit unions and their data.
Here's a link to a press release about the same fantastic growth.
His starting point: a lot of software and tech tools sold to credit unions do not do what they are promised to do and, importantly, they do not solve the problem the credit union wants solved.
So Flammer takes a different kind of look at what ails a credit union and he comes up with different kinds of solutions.
Much of what the company works on is creating better sales tools, dash…
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Mar 30, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 194 Bill Clark Engageware on Digital Trends
The company name flows much more smoothly off the tongue: Engageware.
Before it had been TimeTrade SilverCloud and that was its name a year ago when CEO Bill Clark guested on this podcast. Now he's back for an encore.
The company's business remains helping companies - credit unions very much included - get more member engagement through whatever channel and tools the member chooses to use.
Engagement is critical today. You know that. That's also why Bill Clark is a man to talk with because he knows engagement and he also knows that credit union execs are tempted by many new shiny objects but do they deliver?
In last year's podcast Clark talked at length about the findings in the company's digital first banking report.
This year he is back with a new report with new findings and some of what you will hear in this podcast will blow your mind.
Such as? Chew on this: *Consumers will stay skeptical. *We just aren't as trusting and believing as we had been and that changes a lot. Inclu…
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Mar 23, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 193 Elan Mevasse on Very Good Security - Is It a Better Way to Secure Member Data?
Ask Very Good Security - a San Francisco based fintech - what it does that is different in terms of securing member data and the answer is blunt: what it does is different, better, even very good. To quote from the company's website about the question that spawned the solution: "Was there a way to secure the data, take it out of scope of liability, and still allow it to be used and exchanged? There was. Their solution became Very Good Security, a new type of data security company with a revolutionary way for companies to secure data."
Bold idea?
Absolutely.
But face up to reality: data security has been a train wreck for some years. How many times have your credit card numbers, even SSN, been stolen by hackers in the last decade?
There has to be a better way.
Very Good Security believes it has that way and Elan Mevasse, the company's credit union lead, is on the podcast to tell what the company does and how it does it.
There's some technical speak in this show - "tokenization" an…
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Mar 18, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Special Edition: Tech in Ukraine, Surviving the War
Before the Russian invasion, Ukraine's tech sector was a brilliant, bright spot in that Eastern European nation. By most tallies it brought in revenues around $6 billon in 2021, around 4% of GDP. Foreign investment has been brisk. The future definitely had been bright.
Is it still?
In this podcast the guests are Anatoly, CEO of CXDojo, a Ukraine based firm staffed by software engineers and business consultants, and Maksim, business development manager for CXDojo. Consumer experience is a key focus.
Our talk is about the war, the future, why agile matters as a business philosophy, maybe now more than ever, and why Ukraine is a great place to look for computing talent...and why it will again be once the bombs stop falling.
Along the way you will also hear a lengthy discussion of agile as a business philosophy - and how war maybe is a stark reminder of the need to stay agile.
To get more of team CXDojo, here is a podcast they did with Kirk Drake, founder and CEO of CU2.0. It's a fun,…
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Mar 16, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 192 Laura "Lo" Trujillo Array on Credit Scores and Your Members
It's called Array for good reason. That's because this fintech offers an arsenal -- ok, an array - of credit score tools such as a a credit score, a credit score simulator (what happens if you pay off that mortgage?), three bureau credit scores (they do differ), dark web monitoring and more.
Credit unions that sign up for the Array services can pick and choose what tools they want to offer.
Isn't it simpler - and cheaper - just to point members to Credit Karma?
You bet. But why don't you just tell them to apply for a loan there, too, because Credit Karma makes its money by funneling users into financial products. Products that aren't yours.
Now do we have your attention?
In this podcast, Laura Trujillo - call her Lo - director of credit union sales at Array - tells why you want to know about Array and why your members will be eager to use the tools.
You want more member visits to your site and your mobile app? You want sticky tools? Then you probably want credit score tools becau…
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Mar 9, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast 191 Raj Bhaskar Hurdlr - Make Gig Economy Workers Into Members
Take a guess: how many of your members earn income from the Gig Economy?
That can mean anything from an Uber driver, doing DoorDash deliveries, working as a realtor, or creating podcasts.
Guesses run from 25% to over 40% of your members get some money that results in a 1099 form and, therefore, they very much need an easy way to track tax deductible expenses.
Enter Hurdlr, an app that automates expense tracking - including mileage. That means more Gig workers can deduct more expenses and pay less taxes. Legally.
Hurdlr's aim is to take the sweat and heavy lifting our of expense tracking for gig workers, said Raj Bhaskar, CEO of Hurdlr.
By the company's estimate it has saved users over $300 million in taxes
What does this have to do with your credit union?
Hurdlr is available directly to consumers - there's even a free version.
But now Hurdlr wants to help credit unions make the app available to their members - and that may help bring in new members who suddenly see that your cr…
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Mar 2, 2022
Live from CU2VIP-Live Event #4 Don Shafer Quilo/Joe Arnold Carter on Newstyle Lending
Time travel back 20 years. Imagine going into a credit union or bank and asking for a personal loan for $500.
Reality: unless you are a very established member/customer you would be shown the door. Empty handed. That's because, in those days, there was no way to profitably make that loan.
$50,000? Sure.
But $500 for some emergency dental work? Nah.
But now we are in 2022 and, suddenly, fast, inexpensive loan underwriting is a reality as is loan processing. Enter Quilo, a startup co-founded by Don Shafer, well known as a co founder of Kasasa (click here to hear CU2.0 Podcast #23 on Kasasa).
Quilo's business is making quick instalment loans to credit union members where the member chooses the payback timetable that works best for him/her.
In most cases, too, the terms are more favorable than buying over time on a credit card.
Loan decisioning also is very fast and loans can be offered on credit as well as debit transactions.
Quilo's business model is direct to credit unions and c…
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Mar 1, 2022
Live from CU2VIP-Live Event #3 Jeter + Butcher on CISOs, Fintechs, Security and Your Credit Union
Build a fintech from the ground up with security in mind - especially and crucially if the fintech wants to work with credit unions.
That is the one sentence takeaway from this 20 minute conversation with Shane Butcher, director of CISO Services of CUSO Ongoing Operations (and a past CU2.0 Podcast guest, episode 85), and Gary Jeter, chief technology officer at Trustone Financial Credit Union.
At credit unions - and the federal regulator - security is a non negotiable must have.
Along the way you will also hear about the differences between CIOs and CTOs, where a CISO resides in a credit union (and why), and - listen closely - Jeter tosses out a fascinating idea for a newstyle 21st century safe deposit box that is there for data protection and, he suggests, it just might bring in revenues down the line.
Right there is what made the CU2VIP event special - clever ideas just pop up if you are listening for them.
Listen up.
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Feb 28, 2022
Live from the CU2VIP-Live Event #2 Ray Crouse on CUSOs and Fintechs
Money talks.
Fintechs are hungry for money.
Ray Crouse, CEO of Parsons Federal Credit Union - and a CU 2.0 Podcast veteran (episode link here) - talked in detail at the CU2VIP-Live event about how credit unions and fintechs both can harness the money raising ability of CUSOs, credit union service organizations.
Ray, by the way, is also chair of the board of NACUSO, the National Association of Credit Union Service Organizations.
Parsons, incidentally, is not a huge credit union. It has assets of around $265 million - but Crouse has found a few million dollars that will get invested in CUSOs.
Why? In this short podcast he tells why he sees CUSOs as crucial to credit unions today, maybe especially today when many are looking for new income sources.
Consider this all you wanted to know about CUSOs and credit unions but didn't know who to ask.
Listen up.
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Feb 28, 2022
Live from the CU2VIP-Live Event #1 Martin Walker Next Level Ventures on Venture Funding for Fintechs
The inaugural CU2VIP-Live event will become a Woodstock like meeting in this sense: yes, hundreds of thousands went to Woodstock but if you asked for a show of hands of those who were there be ready to count well into the millions.
Five years from now many will say, yes, I was there at the first CU2VIP-Live event.
We were actually there and what you will be hearing this week are snippets of short talks with participants - who also were there.
The first episode: Martin Walker with NextLevel Ventures with its $250 million-plus venture fund for investments in fintech oriented CUSOs that will bring next gen tech to the credit union industry.
The big idea: to stay competitive with mega banks and fintechs credit unions have to up their technology game.
The better idea: by investing in early stage fintechs credit unions can get a sizable jump on the market and just maybe will gain competitive advantages.
Sound good?
You bet.
Keep listening and you will also hear why Walker attended CU…
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Feb 23, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 189 Chase Neinken Chimney on Calculating Success
Boring. Old. Anachronistic.
Are those the words that come to mind when you think of calculators?
Guess what: maybe those adjectives apply to the calculators at your financial institution's website...but that is not how Chase Neinken, a co-founder of fintech Chimney, sees them.
That's because Chimney is in the business of creating calculators that engage members in looking at their finances in new ways.
Chew on the company's mantra: Engage more customers. Fund more loans.
You know you now want to know more about Chimney.
This podcast will be the short course. Then go to the website - link in the show notes - click into the Chimney website and you will find some 30 templates that are there to try for free.
As in: at no cost.
Neinken in the podcast also reveals that the typical Chimney FI customer is billed under $1000 monthly. That's for 10 calculators. Fees are not based on institution size or number of members. And there is no minimum contract, no need for any time commitment.…
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Feb 17, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 188 Clint Lotz TrackStar AI and Smarter, More Inclusive Lending
How many loan applications does your credit union reject because of the applicant's credit score?
Harder question: how many times are those credit scores erroneously lowered due to faulty information in credit reports?
Listen to Clint Lotz, ceo of TrackStar AI, and the answer is that plenty of loan apps are rejected for exactly those reasons.
What if your institution could harness machine learning tools to swiftly analyze a credit report and identity probable errors that when fixed would result in a 50 to 100 point jump in the credit score?
Sound good? That's why you want to listen to Lotz as he talks about contemporary, cutting edge credit repair tools that will enable a credit union to empower a loan applicant to quickly initiate repair of his/her credit report and, in the process, position the credit union to comfortably grant the credit the applicant seeks.
How good does that sound?
Why haven't you heard of similar before? Probably, says Lotz, because it is all new, enabled b…
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Feb 9, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 187 Joel Schwartz DoubleCheck - NSF the Encore
NSF has become the new four letter within the financial industry. While many institutions have grown dependent upon the $30 or so they charge a customer/member for an NSF, Washington DC is revving up to throw shame at FIs that impose those fees.
What's a credit union to do?
A year ago we did a podcast with Joel Schwartz, founder of the then fledgling DoubleCheck, a company created to help consumers - and their FIs - better navigate NSFs. You are going to want to listen to that podcast - link here.
A lot has happened since that podcast. Washington DC has gotten more vocal about NSFs - you aren't the only one having nightmares about the CFPB and Elizabeth Warren.
A lot of FIs - from Chase to B of A to many credit unions have slashed or eliminated NSF fees. You might think that this is curtains for Schwartz and DoubleCheck.
Think again.
There is the NSF and then there are the ripple effects such as late fees imposed by merchants and credit card companies. Often the late fees can add…
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Feb 2, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 186 Doug Brown NCR on Stayin' Alive, Innovation, and Engaging Your Members
To start the podcast we asked NCR executive Doug Brown the hard question: exactly what can mid-size and small credit unions do to stay alive in the face of relentless competition from fintechs who increasingly are gobbling up home mortgages, p2p payments and a lot more - and what can NCR do to help them.
The questions only got harder from there.
In the podcast Brown tells about how to beat fintechs by achieving better member engagement.
We also talk at length about BNPL, where credit unions may find a piece of this action, and questions to ponder about BNPL. Does it make even a tiny bit of sense to pay for a $100 gourmet sandwich in four easy payments - and by the time you've paid it off do you even remember what you ate.
In this podcast you will also hear crypto currency brought very much to earth. Brown tells how NCR is planning to use crypto and blockchain to revolutionize international remittances and how cool is that? This may also be a fast track to bringing many under- and u…
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Jan 26, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 185 Brynn Ammon Symitar on Core Extension and Teaching Your Old Core New Tricks
Brynn Ammon is on the podcast to tell us that it just isn't true that old cores can't learn new tricks - and she has plenty of examples of integration of new skills into core systems to enable credit unions to offer more and more useful tools to their members.
Reports of the death of the core have been greatly exaggerated suggests Ammon and in this podcast she offers an arsenal of evidence to show the contrary.
She even tells about Symitar's work to integrate a Fiserv tool and, yes, that sounds like the Hatfields and McCoys making nice - but she insists it is true and it is part of Symitar's push to integrate into its cores the tools that will enable credit unions to compete more effectively. Even if that means cooperating with a competitor.
I will be honest, I went into this session thinking it would be as captivating as a talk on what makes a classic Singer sewing machine special.
Ammon proved my preconceptions wrong.
Listen up to find ways to get more value out of that core sys…
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Jan 19, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 184 Saroop Bharwani, Founder/CEO Senso - AI That Builds Member Relations
Can AI - artificial intelligence - be harnessed to build and strength member relations, indeed to know what this member is likely to do right now?
That is the guiding belief at Senso, a Canada based AI company that now is expanding into the US market with a specific focus on credit unions.
It is no secret. The credit union share of the home mortgage market has steadily eroded, as nimble fintechs grab more business. Smart AI just may give credit unions an edge in recapturing marketshare.
The Senso promise is intriguing. When an institution has the right data it can predict with significant accuracy when a member is about to shift from being a home looker to a buyer.
The answer is in the data, says Saroop Bharwani, Senso's founder/CEO.
Right now the Senso focus is on home mortgages but, he says, the same tools will work on car loans, credit card balance transfers and more.
Here is how Senso describes its approach: "Senso creates connected and contextual lending experiences, powered…
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Jan 12, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 183 Jonathan Taylor CEO CU Sol CUSO on Innovative, Soulful Solutions
The name is pronounced CU Soul and know that the CUSO's focus under CEO Jonathan Taylor is indeed on soulful solutions to member problems.
You almost want to cue up "Soul Man" and break out in song.
But these are very serious, thoughtful and - yes - quirky solutions that are getting cooked up at the Albuquerque-based CUSO, formed in 2019 and owned by four credit unions located in New Mexico, Washington DC and Guam. They range in size from well over $1 billion to around $30 millon.
The owners did not create CU Sol to provide cookie cutter products.
Nope.
These are products that are unique and they also are laser focused.
Consider CU SAFE: "CU SAFE is an indirect lending solution created by CU Sol that supports survivors of domestic violence. Its mission is to provide a hand up for survivors of domestic violence in providing both credit and financial counselling as well as lending options by pairing organizations that support survivors of domestic violence with partnering credit un…
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Jan 5, 2022
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 182 SRM's Larry Pruss on What You Need to Know - and Do - About Crypto Currencies
Crypto is now, it is happening.
Happy New Year!
Our first show in 2022 is about a topic that you will likely will be hearing a lot about this year: Crypto currencies. And what you may not realize is that with crypto in play the financial institution stranglehold on wire transfers may slip. Even worse, credit card interchange may vanish.
Now do we have your attention?
Crypto brings risks but also possible rewards for smart players.
On today's show is Larry Pruss, crypto lead at consulting firm SRM (Strategic Resource Management). and, says Pruss, crypto is streaming at you at full speed
Proof is that NCUA in December offered guidance about how credit unions should interact with crypto vendors.
Maybe the biggest risk to credit unions is that evidence mounts that many members will leave a financial institution that doesn't offer crypto related services for one that does. At the very least they will move money out of your credit union into an institution that trades in crypto.
We m…
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Dec 28, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 181 Walt Agius on CUSOs, Indirect Car Loans, and Lending in the 21st Century
Walt Agius knows credit union lending. And he especially knows what credit unions need to to stay competitive in the 21st century.
Consider this podcast a deep dive into today's lending.
The guest is Walt Agius, CEO of Lendsys, a fintech, and also CU Lending Edge, a CUSO that today focuses on car loans but, says Agius, he is looking to extend the portfolio.
In the past he was CEO of CU Sol, a CUSO, and also CEO of California Bear Credit Union.
He really knows lending, especially car loans.
In this podcast Agius offers tips about how to make indirect auto lending work for the credit union (and, yes, he knows many credit unions have grumbles about indirect lending).
He also throws out the idea that every credit union should be looking hard at syndicating every loan that comes in the door. That strategy dramatically limits risk. He said he would want to keep perhaps 10% of most loans but he would want to sell the other 90% of other participants - and this collaborative way is a part…
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Dec 20, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 180 Kirk Drake, Joe Cianciolo HomePace, Mike Kenzie Patriot FCU on Brainstorming Fintech
Put your brainstorming hat on. You'll want it as you listen to this podcast that serves as a preview of the January 20, 2022 CU 2.0 Brainstorm event that will gather together fintech leaders and credit union executives for a day of lively presentations (topics to be chosen by the attendees) and conversation.
Consider this podcast a mini preview of what the Brainstorm event will feel like.
Joe Cianciolo talks about how HomePace - a fintech that makes home equity investments that may be tapped by homeowners and buyers without taking on debt.
Chief information officer Kenzie tells about the tech priorities at Patriot Federal Credit Union, a $900 million institution - and he tells what he looks for in the fintechs he works with
Drake tells about the urgency of matching up credit unions and the right fintechs and the challenges of making it happen.
It's a show that will leave you more informed and also energized.
Listen up.
Want more info on the Brainstorm event? Click here. There's…
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Dec 15, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 179 Bryce Deeney of equipifi and the Rise of BNPL
BNPL. Remember that because you soon will be using that abbreviation often.
It stands for Buy Now, Pay Later and it is just about the hottest trend in payments at retail.
Today's US market is small, maybe $50 billion but forecasts show the BNPL market crashing into the many hundreds of billions of dollars by the middle of the present decade. And then the numbers start to get dizzily huge.
Why so much interest? Oldtimers will recall that BNPL was a staple of 1950s retail but as credit cards proliferated it receded into the background. But now it is again hot and that's because it speaks to the purchasing needs and desires of Gen Z and young Millennials. Why don't they just slap down a Visa card and put it on credit? The advantage of BNPL to them is that they know the total cost of purchase when they make it. The full payments amount, spread out over an agreed upon number of months, is there to see.
Pay the minimum on a credit card purchase and suddenly the total amount paid can vaul…
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Dec 9, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 178 Cameron Madill on Credit Union Websites, B Corps, and Much More
Be bold.
That is the loud message from Cameron Madill, CEO of PixelSpoke, an Oregon headquartered marketing agency that primarily serves credit unions. He also hosts "The Remarkable Credit Union" podcast.
Too many credit unions simply want to fit in, he says.
Dare to be different and that just may get you noticed.
That's just one take-away from this podcast - there are many more.
Want to know if your website is good? Madill tells us the main way credit union websites go bad. Use it as a checklist to judge your own.
Do you do member testing of your site? You probably will want to after listening to ths podcas because Madill tells the enormous benefits of testing with even a handful of members.
He also tells why credit unions need to embrace storytelling in their marketing, a topic he has written about for CUInsight.
Buckle up because he also tells why PixelSpoke is a worker owned cooperative and why it is a certified B Corp. The latter is a credentialing program that designated…
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Dec 1, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 177 Amber Callahan VP of Marketing at 1st Advantage FCU and Kristin Harrison Web Strategies on Digital Marketing
What you don't know about digital marketing can be your undoing. That is 2021 fact.
For some years credit union c-suite occupants have shrugged off digital marketing - it's just for kids, our members skew old. Maybe that was true (maybe it wasn't as true as the c-suiters believed) but what now has become indisputable in our pandemic era is that digital is here and it has become a significant part of just about every life.
That includes credit union members.
Where's a credit union to get started in digital marketing? That's what you will hear about in this podcast with Amber Callahan, VP of marketing at 1st Advantage FCU in Virginia, and Kristin Harrison, director of business development at Web Strategies, also in Virginia.
They have had a multi-year journey together and you will learn how to get started in digital marketing and how to go to next, higher levels.
Do note: this is pretty much a tech free podcast. There's no need to have a techie at your side for this one.
And accept…
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Nov 23, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 176 Vizo and Aptys on the Reinvention of the Corporate Credit Union
If you had asked me ten years ago what the future was for corporate credit unions I probably would have said: they have one?
There were reasons for cynicism: You remember Wescorp, right? There are links in the show notes if you need memory refreshing.
But - and this is a huge but - there are literally thousands of small credit unions that needed and still need a corporate credit union to provide crucial assistance in a range of functions, from payments (especially contemporary ultra fast money movement) to short term liquidity.
I covered the corporate credit union beat for a few years at Credit Union Times and, while I cannot say the sector every thrilled me, little by little I grew to see corporates as essential in today's credit union universe. Were the credit union sector to shrink down to a few hundred behemoths corporates likely would vanish.
But in a world with 5000+ credit unions, many minuscule, the need for corporates remains.
Have they modernized? Are they part of 21st c…
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Nov 17, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 175 MBFS CEO Mark Ritter Tells How to Make Member Business Lending Work
Some credit unions are making lots of very profitable member business loans. Most aren't. In fact, by Mark Ritter's count, maybe 300 of the nation's credit unions are genuine players in this business. The rest are dabblers, he says.
That's a shock because in the last couple years there has been a stampede of credit unions eager to get into member business lending. The reasons are obvious. There has been an avalanche of deposits that need to be put to work. Meantime, both the home mortgage and car loan markets are sputtering, definitely as far as credit unions go.
The eyes in the credit union c-suite shift to local businesses and the question gets asked: how do we lend to them?
Ritter, longtime CEO of Pennsylvania based CUSO Member Business Financial Services, which specializes in member business lending, knows the reality.
About 80 credit unions are active with MBFS - 13 are owners - and they range in size from tiny to over $1 billion in assets. Ritter pegs the MBFS sweet spot as i…
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Nov 10, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 174 Tyler Gillies of Debtsy on 21st Century Debt Collection
What are the chief tools of old school debt collectors? Phone and US mail. Two problems. Nobody answers the phone when it's an unknown number (do you?) and US mail, increasingly, is tossed unread because all the important, urgent stuff comes via email.
Enter Debtsy, a fintech that is pioneering 21st century collection techniques that are kinder, gentler and - above all - digital. The chief Debtsy tools are email and its website and, in the process, Debtsy also uses data to sift through charged off debts to zero in on those borrowers who have both the means and the willingness to repay.
A lot of debtors have neither. Debtsy seeks to focus in on the borrowers where the potential for return is real.
That approach looks vastly more effective than the old school techniques. It also is highly cost efficient because much of it is automated.
You will hear all about 21st century debt collection in this podcast with Tyler Gillies, Debtsy's director of operations.
Debtsy of course knows that…
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Nov 3, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 173 Alexey Krasnoriadtsev BankingON on Bank Dora, Mobile Banking Now and Love
Early in this podcast you will realize that Alexey Krasnoriadtsev is a different kind of tech CEO. For starters, this is a podcast where you will not hear much - probably nothing - that sends you to Google to look up words you don't understand. But the bigger difference is that this is a tech CEO who talks about why it's important that users of technology feel loved by their tech, that credit unions and other financial institutions do right by their users (and Alexey backs that up by refusing to help efforts that don't align with that philosophy), and who admits a lot of FI tech is blah - and he tells why that is so.
You know his work. In podcast 172 you heard about Bank Dora, the innovative neo-bank birthed by a credit union. BankingON worked on that project.
The core BankingON pursuit is creating new mobile banking apps and that means tools that do what the users want (rather than what the vendors and FIs want which is the norm).
Be prepared to be surprised, often in this podcast.…
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Oct 27, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 172 USAlliance's CEO Kris VanBeek on its Neo-bank Bank Dora
Meet Dora. She just may change all that you think about mobile banking.
A product of USAlliance - a $2 billion credit union based in Rye, NY that happens to be the legacy IBM employees credit union - Dora is the first credit union attempt to create a so-called neo bank, that is a branchless institution with no bricks and mortar.
USAlliance has been joined in this effort by three other credit unions: Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union ($3.5B in assets) headquartered in St. Paul, Minn.; Digital Federal Credit Union ($9.8B in assets) in Marlborough, Mass.; Service Credit Union ($5B in assets) in Portsmouth, N.H.
It may be seeking others to join in helping to spread Dora which, presently, is aimed at low to moderate income Americans who may be underserved or unserved by traditional financial institutions.
Can Dora survive in a marketplace where there are heavily funded, venture backed competitors - Chime for instance?
In this podcast USAlliance CEO Kris VanBeek offers candid, honest h…
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Oct 20, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 171 Andre Iervolino on Steps You Need to Take To Keep Your Credit Union Relevant
Irrelevance beckons. And it will swallow many credit unions whole.
That is the message delivered by Andre Iervolino, a longtime credit union senior staffer who wrote a provocative piece in The Financial Brand entitled "10 Factors That Will Determine Banks' Future Relevance."
Reading is article will rock you because, frankly, he is not optimistic about the future of many credit unions.
A core reason is that, often, they just don't get that technology is rewriting the game book. What mattered 25 years ago does not count today.
In this podcast we explore the key takeaways of the article and the first is that the nature of a primary financial institution has changed and, said Iervolino, "Community financial institutions no longer compete only against the large banks within their marketplace, but also with big tech (Apple, Amazon, Google Checking, PayPal), fintechs, and neobank/mobile banks such as Chime, SoFi and Ally."
He added: "On average, financial services customers have between…
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Oct 13, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 170 Tim Keith of SRM on The Great Reset in Financial Services
Things are different today in financial services and, increasingly, there is a realization that we are not going back to "normal," not later this year, probably not ever. That means credit union executives have to think bigger - more boldly - about how to compete in a changing financial services landscape.
The podcast opens up with a huge credit union 2021 fact: institutions are awash in deposits. Why? What to do with them?
Data-driven thoughts on that and many more credit union issues come from Tim Keith, chief strategist of Account Boost for SRM, an independent advisory firm that focuses on financial services companies, credit unions included.
In the podcast Keith tackles tough issues - how should credit unions pursue branch realignment, how can they do business banking right, why aren't they better at offering online account opening, and what is a simple action step for deepening relationships with existing members.
It's a wide ranging podcast - take notes because you will get i…
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Oct 6, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 169 Finalytics.ai on How Digital Can Be Harnessed to Revolutionize Member Service
The language on the Finalytics.ai website is bold: "Our mission is simple: use technology to help financial institutions offer the same exceptional service they are known for in-branch, online. As digital commands a greater share of the customer touch, we are passionate about helping organizations grow and keep the promise of modern service excellence alive."
Read that again.
For as long as I have been involved with credit unions, I have heard c-suite executives telling us that their differentiator is their people.
And then along came the pandemic. What difference do your people mean to the member who does not want to set foot in a branch and in fact wants to move the relationship entirely into the digital realm?
How do you deliver first rate member service through digital channels - and know that it can be done and in fact already is being done (think USAA and Chase)?
These are the questions that shape this podcast with the co-founders of Finalytics.ai, Craig McLaughlin,CEO, and…
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Sep 29, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 168 Jake Tyler Finn AI on Conversational Banking 2021 Style
The future of banking just may be voice - but that will probably mean talking with a computer. Already tens of millions of Bank of America customers use its Erica and that number is growing at a brisk rate.
It should be no surprise. Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant are part of many of our lives today. We talk with machines. We like talking with machines.
Question: how is a credit union to compete in this sphere.
Enter Finn AI, a conversational banking company formed precisely to address these needs for credit unions and community banks.
Already Finn AI has a couple credit union customers - BECU is one. And it is looking for more.
That's why it has scheduled an October 6 virtual conversational banking summit, a half day devoted to giving credit union and bank execs the information they need to make decisions about AI and conversational banking.
Did I mention it is free for credit union execs.
Link here.
If you can't make the summit, sign up anyway and you'll get a link so you ca…
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Sep 22, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 167 Nathan Baumeister ZSuite Technologies on Finding Riches in Niches
Be real - few credit unions can genuinely be all things to all members because how big would the institution have to be?
As you ponder that - really drill into the idea that there can be success in being small - now consider a fintech named ZSuite Technologies. It has three product lines that it makes available to its financial institution partners: ZRent, aimed at property managers and landlords; ZDeposit, again aimed at property managers and landlords, this tool helps track rental deposits and understand the laws vary by state, sometimes by city; and ZEscrow, which helps escrow account holders - such as lawyers and government agencies - better track and manage those monies.
All niche? You bet but that's the intent. The initial tools grew out of a Massachusetts community bank which wanted ways to better compete in a marketplace where it sometimes seems that only behemoths thrive. That's when a lightbulb clicked. Property managers and small landlords had lots of problems - how many s…
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Sep 15, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 166 Jill Nowacki on the Credit Union War for Talent: HR in 2021
It's tough out there. That's a paraphrase of how Jill Nowacki, a 20 year veteran of the credit union industry and presently CEO of Humanidei + O'Rourke where she focuses on talent recruitment for credit unions.
When fast food outlets are advertising starting pay at $15 and up per hour in much of the country you get a hint of how tough it is right now to recruit for credit unions.
But the problems aren't limited to entry level jobs. In this podcast Nowacki talks at length about issues in filling c-suite jobs (even CEO slots) and also the increasing challenges in recruiting new members for the board of directors.
One takeaway from this podcast: start thinking strategically about employees and board members. Random just isn't going to hack it anymore.
Also focus in on the credit union advantages in hiring - for instance a genuine community focus and a focus not on profits but on doing good. Many of us - and especially many younger people - put a high priority on those attitudes and cr…
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Sep 8, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 165 UNest and Smarter Savings for Children
You know the horror stories - the educational loan burden keeps mounting for many millions and, frankly, the options for lessening that burden are not plentiful.
But there are options. Meet UNest. It's an app and what it does it help set aside money for a child. It's flexible too. The underlying law is the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act which allows an adult to set up a tax advantaged savings plan that benefits a minor and the money can be spent on education, but also on a first car or a wedding or many other things.
Who gives also is flexible. Parents of course but also grandparents, other relatives and just plain friends.
Earnings in the account are tax advantaged.
You never heard of the UTMA? Join the club. It is not widely known legislation. But, executed smartly, it can deliver real benefits to a child.
On the podcast to tell us about UNest are Peter Mansfield, CMO, Erin Matta, VP partnerships, and Alison Silverstein, CEO of KidFund, a savings app that recently was acquired…
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Sep 1, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 164 Pamela Owens SVP Inclusiv on African American Credit Unions and a Whole Lot More DEI 5 2021
She's smart. She has around 20 years experience at Inclusiv, the association for community development financial institutions and its predecessor organization. And she has put a lot of attention on African American Credit Unions. Will they survive? Does it matter?
Meet Pamela Owens, a SVP at Inclusiv and she comes with a lot to tell us.
As for African American credit unions, they will survive and, yes, it definitely matters, says Owens in this podcast. She tells why.
She also gives a grade for credit union industry efforts regards Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts (and know she is not an easy grader).
Along the way we talk about progress African Americans have made in regard to credit union employment - and the progress they need to make in regard to C-suite employment.
Credit unions, unlike banks, are birthed with a moral reason for their existence. Banks exist to profit their shareholders. Credit unions - especially CDFIs - exist to bring financial services to the underser…
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Aug 25, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 163 Khellar Crawford CEO Otomo
Go to the website for Otomo and here's what jumps out at you: "Be the money platform people love. Turn any account holder into an avid user with autonomous personal money management."
Read it again.
What Otomo is about is a revolution in our digital money management and here is a fact: on a fundamental level, online and mobile banking are not substantially different from what debuted in the mid 1990s.
Another fact: PFMs are not significantly more engaging than they were when they were introduced a generation ago.
Otomo's plan is to revolutionize all of that.
To rethink how we bank.
And, yes, to make it all much more engaging - and fun! - than we are accustomed to.
On its LinkedIn page, Otomo says about itself: "Picture a world where your money knows where to go as soon as it hits your bank account, organizing itself in real-time. Sounds like something out of Blade Runner? It's not.
"Otomo is delivering on banking's ultimate promise of hyper-personalized cash management tools t…
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Aug 18, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 162 Peter Rice Workers Credit Union on What's Stressing Out Your Members and How Credit Unions Can Help
Money woes.
It sounds like the title of a blues song but, ask Peter Rice, Chief Banking Officer at Workers Credit Union in Massachusetts, and he will tell you it's not an oldie but today's lyric and he can prove it with a recent Central Mass survey that found 65% of the residents said they were unsure, stressed, or extremely stressed about money.
Ouch. that's a lot of anxiety but, said Rice, it's exactly a place where a credit union could and should help and, in that way, it will also gain a competitive edge.
In the process, Workers has introduced a new branch concept - called PlanIt - which, get this, features an interactive hologram named Olivia and a short, perky robot named Pepper.
I don't kid you.
That's because the Workers hope with its new branch is that it will be welcoming, inclusive, but also will help inspire members to achieve their personal financial wellness.
A stat that hit Rice like a brick is that most of us - even the seemingly well off - don't have $400 in read…
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Aug 11, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 161 Kavita Singh Payrailz on AI and Your Credit Union
Ask Kavita Singh - a vice president at payments company Payrailz - what's a smart way to differentiate a credit union in a a competitive marketplace that is ever more cluttered and her answer is succinct: AI.
As she wrote in a recent Credit Union Times article, "Credit union leaders must go a step further and find a true strategic differentiator. This can be found via artificial intelligence."
A few years ago AI was akin to The Matrix - kind of a cool but spacey idea and, truth to tell, none but the very biggest credit unions even had it on their "learn about" lists.
That's changed.
AI is suddenly everywhere. Call your cellphone provider and a machine will answer. Ditto at the big credit card companies. Also airlines. And down a lengthening list of institutions that, increasingly, turn to machines to find information, answer customer questions, solve problems.
In Singh's view, credit unions are ideally positioned to win at AI, mainly because they already have bushels of member dat…
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Aug 4, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 160 Izabella Gabowicz COO Sensibill Answers the Spending Question
You know the income of many of your members.
Now here's the big question: do you know what they are spending it on?
Down to the SKU level - that is, on exactly what are they spending?
You want to meet Izabella Gabowicz, COO and a founding team member at Toronto based fintech Sensibill, a company built around the insight that financial wellness is not one size fits all. Joe's financial wellness might include a craft beer a day, wile Susie's might favor a non alcoholic kombucha a day and, yeah, knowing such differences night help a financial institution deliver more customized financial wellness programming.
Says Sensibill about itself, "At Sensibill, we're working to make financial services personal—you could say, more human. We build products that reveal insights into everyday spend that can be used to truly personalize financial services. And in doing so, help people achieve their unique version of financial wellness."
Focus on that: insights into personal daily spend.
It all…
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Jul 28, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 159 Kelli Ellsworth Etchison LAFCU and Gary Lee MDT CUSO on DEI DEI 4 2021
Kelli Ellsworth Etchison, chief marketing officer and chief diversity officer at the $950 million, Lansing, Mich.-based LAFCU and a member of Michigan’s Black Leadership Advisory Council, and Gary Lee is Chief Client Office at MDT, Member Driven Technology, a tech focused CUSO, are in this podcast to tell why DEI - diversity, equity and inclusion - matter to credit unions.
Here's the big question Lee addresses: how does MDT explain to its owners, customers and prospects that it - a CUSO that specializes in delivering cloud based core processing - puts a large emphasis on DEI? What business is this of a tech focused CUSO?
It's a central concern, explained Lee in the podcast and he added that MDT has even signed new customers who said their preference is to do business with companies that share their concerns about social justice and equality issues.
As for Etchison, she puts a DEI concern on the table that we have not heard before in over a half dozen DEI focused podcasts. Her idea…
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Jul 21, 2021
CU 2.0 Episode 158 Jack Henry Experts Talking Fraud Trends and Credit Union Vulnerabilities
Newsflash: ask the experts and they will tell credit union executives that a tidal wave of fraud very likely will be crashing into them and soon.
Why? For the past year criminals have been kept busy attempting to cash in on the various federal and state government pandemic related relief programs such as PPP loans. That money is drying up so they are casting their eyes in search of new targets and you just may have a bullseye on your back.
That’s why you need to hear this wide ranging conversation with two Jack Henry fraud and financial crimes experts, Rene Perez and Nat Southern.
This is a conversation about crime trends and also about crime trends that remain largely ignored.
A big trend for instance is that as financial institutions, especially the big ones, have toughed their perimeter defenses, criminals have shifted focus and are eyeing credit union members for vulnerabilities - which they very often will find.
Perez says a trigger for this is that many financial instituti…
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Jul 14, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast 157 DEI Doubleheader Emma Norman (Local Government FCU and AACUC) and Lynn Heckler (PSCU) DEI 2021 3
Welcome to the CU2.0 doubleheader podcast where you will hear two perspectives on DEI and the industry.
"We are stronger together." That is what Emma Norman, director of learning and development at Local Government Federal Credit Union and also chief diversity officer at the African American Credit Union Coalition, has to say when asked why LGFCU is all in when it comes to supporting the Credit Union DEI Collective.
She adds that what she tells credit unions is that "DEI has to be part of your strategy."
Think on that. DEI - diversity, equity and inclusion, a movement that gained force in the past year as evidence multiplied that the United States is a country with deep, lingering racial divides - just maybe is a whole lot more than a nice to do.
"DEI is a business imperative," said Lynn Heckler, chief talent officer at PSCU. Her point: the credit unions and allied companies that want longterm success will be very sure they look much like their communities and across America those…
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Jul 7, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 156 Renee Sattiewhite AACUC DEI 2021 2
You know Renee Sattiewhite. She's CEO of the African American Credit Union Coalition (AACUC), has been a past guest on this podcast (episode 101), she is a co-star in DCUC's Tony Hernandez's recent podcast (155) and she is the person to see if you want to know how African Americans are faring in credit union c-suites, in boardrooms, and as they stand in teller lines.
But, lately. in the DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) universe, her interests are broadening and she is pondering how many minorities (Latinos and women for instance) are succeeding in credit unions.
DEI, she says, is not a minute, it's a movement. Indeed. Started amid the despair of last summer - George Floyd RIP - a year into it and the question has to be, what's been accomplished. Sattiewhite tells her opinion in this podcast.
Know that progress is getting made. But this is hard, continuing work.
A recent project is CCEP - cross-cultural exchange program - where credit union people are pared with another, typically…
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Jun 30, 2021
CU 2.0 Episode 155 Tony Hernandez DCUC on the AACUC CCEP (Initials Decoded Below) DEI 2021 1
Now don't you wish you had a magic decoder ring?
There's an alphabet soup in the podcast title. Let me decipher.
DCUC - Defense Credit Union Council, the trade group for some 181 military themed credit unions (and many are behemoths - Navy Fed, Pen Fed, you get the picture).
Tony Hernandez is the DCUC CEO, after logging 25 years in the Air Force where he finished as a colonel.
AACUC is the African American Credit Union Coalition. You know AACUC because last year the CEO Renee Sattiewhite was a guest on the show. Remember that name because you will hear it frequently in this podcast.
As for CCEP that's a new AACUC initiative that has paired people of different backgrounds and often different races for a 90 day interaction.
Hernandez is on the steering committee, and he has authored CUInsight blogs explaining the why of CCEP.
The first CCEP round comes to a close in July, but the hunt already is on for participants in a new round.
Experts debate when the US will become minority m…
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Jun 23, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 154 Joe Cianciolo Home Co-Purchasing
An elderly member contacts you. He/she has a stack of medical bills, little in savings, but substantial equity in a home. What are the options? How can you help?
Two obvious choices are a HELOC and a reverse mortgage but there are significant problems with both. When there are no other options, well, maybe....
But now there is a third way and today's podcast guest, Joe Cianciolo, CEO of HomePace, is here to tell us about what amounts to co-investing in single family homes (sorry condo owners, HomePace presently is not investing in them. It also is not interested in rental property or vacation homes).
What HomePace does is buy an option to purchase up to 17.5% of a home. It pays for that ownership now, But it does not collect until the home is sold, or in rare cases the owner buys out their position. That means HomePace is in for the longterm.
HomePace is a passive investor. It has no right to force a sale.
HomePace's investment is not debt. It has no impact on the homeowner's FICO…
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Jun 16, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 153 Jon Voorhees on What You Do Not Know About Smart Branching
Jon Voorhees has spent his work life optimizing branch performance. He has headed initiatives where an institution added hundreds of branches and he has headed initiatives where hundreds of branches were closed. His last job at a financial services company - he now is a consultant based in Washington State - was as a senior vice president at Bank of America and you can guess how many challenges he faced at that bank.
But he knows credit unions too and in recent years has worked with a number on a simple question: how to optimize the branch strategy. The question is easy to ask but hard to answer, especially since so much that impacts branching, from the pandemic to financial technology, keeps changing.
One thing Voorhees is adamant about: branches aren't going way.
Another thing: branches make for remarkably effective billboards for financial institutions. Maybe you cannot afford a sizable ad daily in your local newspaper, but a properly positioned branch, with the right kind of sig…
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Jun 9, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 152 Bill Clark CEO TimeTrade SilverCloud on Digital First Banking Trends
You know the headline - in fact you could write the story on the explosion in digital banking transactions during the last pandemic year.
But do you know this: there has also been an explosion in the use of digital self-service information gathering and problem solving.
That's the surprising news in a report from TimeTrade SilverCloud, a provider of customer engagement solutions.
In this podcast Bill Clark, CEO of TimeTrade SilverCloud offers the specifics - and prepared to be surprised. Everybody knew members have been using digital to check account balances and pay bills but who knew members were making strong use of digital to investigate everything from PPP loans to how to get contactless debit cards.
By TimeTrade SilverCloud's data, "Usage of online self-service increased 38% from March to April 2020 and has sustained a level 69% greater even a year later – demonstrating a shift in customer behavior to leverage self-service options before reaching out for live support."
Ano…
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Jun 2, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 151 Michelle Asher ENT on Social Media Mastery
Consider this podcast everything you wanted to know about credit unions and their social media channels but were afraid to ask. Or maybe you just didn't know to ask.
But the reality today is that social media have emerged as a crucial communications outlet - and for some generations they may be the most important way to communicate.
And yet the channels are so new. Twitter started in 2006. Facebook dates back to 2004. Instagram was launched in 2010. LinkedIn dates back 2003.
But for most credit unions it is safe to say their significant involvement in social media dates back maybe a handful of years.
And the media themselves evolve and change.
That's why you want to hear from Michelle Asher, a marketing manager with a specific focus on social media at ENT, the nation's 25th largest credit union with assets of $6.7 billion.
Asher is the first fulltime manager for social media at ENT but she came to the job with 25 years of experience in public relations and communications.
In the…
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May 25, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 150 Vince Bezemer on Self-Directed Banking
File this under trends that will rock the ground beneath your feet. The next wave in financial services will be self-direction, says Vince Bezemer, head of strategy at Backbase, whom you know from CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 110 (and the companion, 111, with Wildfire Credit Union, a Backbase customer).
Now Bezemer is back with a big message: members no longer want you to tell them how to do what they want to do. You can't offer 90% account origination online but in the last mile insist a branch visit is key.
In a similar vein, the money centers banks no longer will be able to bully customers into using digital solutions when what they want is high touch analog.
There's a revolution coming, warns Bezemer, and the FIs that thrive will be the ones that get the message that today's member calls the shots.
And for the FIs that resist this, there's the reality that at least some FIs already have heard this message and are charging ahead.
For credit unions, Bezemer's message is that it's not…
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May 18, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 149 Samira Rajan Brooklyn Cooperative Credit Union and Economic Inequality
It was the members' personal stories that hooked Samira Rajan early in her employment at what then was known as the Bushwick Cooperative and now is the Brooklyn Cooperative. When she started there it was in 2001 as a volunteer via AmeriCorp Vista the recently founded credit union had assets of $299,000, four employees (including her), and a membership of under 1000.
Rajan has been there ever since. Today it has assets of $50 million, 16 employees, and two branches (one in Bushwick, the other in Bedford-Stuyvesant).
As for those stories, Rajan spent her early years at the institution as the loan officer and the stories she heard was from this member as to why she needed a $10,000 loan for her business, or from that member on why he needed a $5000 home improvement loan. These are stories about hopes and dreams and Rajan found it exciting to think about making dreams come true and also protecting the credit union's solvency.
As for how she wound up at the credit union in the first plac…
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May 11, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 148 Cathi Kim on Capitalizing Your Small Credit Union
Cathi Kim's job title at Inclusiv, a trade association for community development credit unions, tells you why you need to listen to her. She's Director of Inclusiv/Capital which means her focus is on finding ways for community development credit unions, often very small, to bring in new capital, which can come from a range of places - government programs, big credit unions, foundations, the list goes on.
How can the CEO of a small CDCU find out about these capital sources? Probably she/he can't because there are only so many hours in the day and usually leadership in a CDCU wears many hats and a chunk of time to research funding possibilities just is hard to come by.
That's why Cathi Kim has to be in your contact list. Here's how Inclusiv describes her job duties: "Her role includes leading underwriting, market analysis and strategy development, advising on credit union regulations, business planning, and impact design to help credit unions strengthen their double bottom line of fina…
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May 4, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 147 Luis Pastor Latino Community Credit Union
Latino Community Credit Union was founded in 2000 in Durham NC when the community was rocked by a wave of robberies - even murders - of Latino workers who were paid in cash and were believed to walk around with their pockets stuffed with cash because they were unbanked.
Enter John Herrera - whom you know from CU 2.0 Podcast 142 - and a handful more helpers and visionaries who founded the credit union which now has about $600 million in assets.
Among the early volunteers was Luis Pastor who was in the US from his native Spain because his wife was pursuing graduate school and he had time on his hands. But soon he was offered the job of CEO and he took the offer. It's a job he is still in 21 years later and, he says, the fulfillment the job brings is what keeps him in it.
Like what? Pastor tells of borrowers who have been deported who are still paying their loans - that seems unthinkable but it is a reality in Durham because this is a credit union that engages in helping people who hav…
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Apr 27, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 146 Fintech Meetup with Anil Aggarwal and Kirk Drake
Anil Aggarwal is an entrepreneur who knows a thing or two about providing venues where executives come together and good things happen. He was co-founder of Money 20/20, an event that redefined how financial services executives and fintech executives could profitably come together. After that venture was sold, he co-founded Shoptalk, a meeting venue for retail execs and technologists. That was sold off. And now he is creating his next new thing, Fintech Meetup, and you want to know about this June 15-17 *virtual* event that will link financial services execs with fintech execs in double opt-in meetings that last 15 minutes.
Why 15 minutes? Aggarwal says he has found that's the optimal time. If the two parties find they have more to talk about they can arrange it. Or they can part with smiles on their faces because it was only 15 minutes.
And you did notice these are dual opt in meetings. Both parties have to accept for the meeting to be scheduled.
And it's all virtual in our pandemi…
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Apr 20, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 145 Robert Siciliano on Ransomware and Who Do You Trust?
PSCU called it a growing credit union threat. CUNA Mutual called it one of the fastest growing malware threats. Security company Arctic Wolf has said there was a 520% increase in ransomware and phishing attacks in the banking sector between March and June 2020. NCUA has even issued a punchlist of steps to take to protect against ransomware attacks.
Color me surprised. I had thought ransomware - where hackers "lock" a site or a database and demand a ransom to unlock it - was a thing of the past. Data redundancy in the cloud had eliminated the threat, I thought.
I was wrong.
Crooks are nimble and in today's iteration of ransomware, yes, the site still is locked - but before that happens the crook makes a point to copy key files. Tell the crooks you won't play ball, or simply ignore their demands, and they up the ante by posting a sample of their data theft on publicly viewable sites. Imagine if the Social Security numbers of 10,000 of your members suddenly sprout up online. How ugly i…
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Apr 13, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 144, Randy Icelow Rolling F Credit Union, From a Temp Gig to CEO
At 29 Randy Icelow said he was a temp worker for a bus company in California's Central Valley and flashforward to now he is 38 and CEO of a $63 million credit union, Rolling F based in Turlock CA, where its SEG is Foster Farms, one of the biggest chicken companies in the country.
This podcast grew out of a post Icelow put up on the CU 2.0 Facebook group where he recounted his story. Reading his story we knew he had to be a podcast guest because his is an inspiration story of success in the face of failure. He graduated from college in 2008 with a finance degree and you remember how dismal the credit union and bank job markets were then. He bounced around a bit, took more classes, got a job as a school teacher in Stockton, which proceeded to file bankruptcy. He was back working as a temp and he lucked out. He got a gig at a credit union which liked him so much they hired him onto regular staff.
After a while he applied for a CEO job at a bank - didn't get it but learned a lot - and th…
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Apr 6, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 143 Stephanie Smith America's Credit Union Museum
The building still stands at 420 Notre Dame Avenue in Manchester NH. That's where the nation's first credit union - St. Mary's Bank - opened its doors in 1908, to serve founding French American mill workers (and, yes, much of the original paperwork was written in French).
St. Mary's Bank outgrew that space, moved into other facilities, but some years later it recognized that it wanted to preserve its original history and an attempt to buy it from its then owner was made.
It did not succeed.
As for how therefore the building now houses the America's Credit Museum you want to listen to this podcast with Stephanie Smith, executive director of the museum.
The museum now is deep into an effort to capture and preserve the memories of a generation of credit union leaders who are entering retirement.
Words of advice: don't throw away your archives without first contacting the museum. You may well have pieces that the museum will covet as it seeks to document the how of the rise of America…
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Mar 30, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 142 John Herrera The Immigrant Banking Journey
Before logging into this call, I studied up on who John Herrera is. He was born in Costa Rica, then came to the US to go to college at the University of Delaware and one thing led to another and instead of going back to Costa Rica to build a better society he stayed in the US and has worked on building a better society for all of us but with a special focus on Hispanic immigrants such as himself.
My first question to him, off mike, is how did he get from there to here. The podcast starts off with him telling that saga.
Today Herrera is a senior vice president at Self-Help in North Carolina, where his focus is on Hispanic relations and he has been busy building banking relationships with immigrant communities in North Carolina but also Illinois, Florida and California.
Also on is resume is that he is a co-founder of the very successful Latino Community Credit Union in North Carolina. That credit union got its start some 20 years ago when there was a wave of robberies and murders of i…
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Mar 23, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 141 Teresa Freeborn CUNA's "Open Your Eyes" - a Return Conversation
CUNA is still at its "Open Your Eyes" to a credit union campaign and Teresa Freeborn is still heading the effort. Regular listeners will remember Freeborn from her podcast two years ago, episode 29, and when she asked for a return we gladly said yes.
You probably heard that CUNA paused the campaign last year for what was called a re-set. Freeborn tells what happened.
Along the way, CUNA spun the campaign off as a separate company January 1, 2020. The campaign now is led by CU Awareness, LLC
Freeborn also tells what is happening now where about half the nation's states are on board with supporting the campaign and more are on tap to go online this year.
Freeborn stresses in the podcast that this is a critical chance for credit unions to join together in lifting what has been a long stagnant market share. The big banks keep getting bigger. Credit unions need to fight the trend.
Freeborn's belief is that the cooperative structure and nature of credit unions is a huge advantage - but…
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Mar 16, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 140 AI and Gesa
This is not an infomercial for Scienaptic, an AI vendor with a particular focus on lending.
There are two guests on the podcast - Eric Steinhoff, a Scienaptic executive vice president, and Kevin Willborn, vice president of consumer lending at $3.3 billion Gesa Credit Union.
Essentially you will hear that Scienaptic's tools are a way to speed up loan decisioning and also to make the decisions very possibly better. It's hard not to like better and faster.
Willborn also tells what loans he plans to run through Scienaptic - lots of different kinds.
This is a tight podcast but in it you will hear how Scienaptic in fact creates better tools for smarter underwriting. It's a short course in the secret sauce of an AI engine.
Steinhoff also tells why he prefers to work with credit unions over community banks. You will want to hear this.
At Gesa, meantime, the determination is to up its lending game and that is why Willborn took a look at new tools for smarter processing. When he heard the…
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Mar 9, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 139 Sundie Seefried on Cannabis Banking
On July 1, Sundie Seefried, longtime CEO of Partner Colorado Credit Union, makes a huge career change. On that day she resigns the credit union job to become the CEO of Safe Harbor Financial, LLC, a Partner Colorado subsidiary formed for the purpose of handling cannabis related banking.
When Safe Harbor was created in 2015, it was a groundbreaking institution for conducting compliance based banking that would satisfy regulators.
Safe Harbor has become a big, consuming business and, said Seefried, it's helped put credit unions into the conversation of cannabis banking - and, increasingly, that is a conversation that is being heard as more states legalize marijuana. Included are multiple big states: California, Washington, Michigan, and Illinois. In only a handful of states is marijuana fully illegal.
In this podcast Seefried talks about the process of validating the cash that flows through a marijuana business. She also talks about the early days of Safe Harbor - and the hostility an…
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Mar 2, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 138 Kirk Drake on Artificial Intelligence and Why You Are Five Years Behind the Leaders
Start today, really embrace AI - artificial intelligence, where machines think and they are good at it when fed enough of the right data - and, guess what, you are already four or five years behind the leaders and that group includes most of the money center banks and maybe even a few credit unions.
Sounds gloomy? Well, it is, kind of, but CU2.0 founder Kirk Drake is here with a new book, FinAncIal, which aims to tell credit union executives what they need to know about AI and also what they need to get doing, right now. This book is not so much about theory as it is an action manual and, know this, AI is something every credit union needs to be exploring right now.
The good news is that there are many hundreds of AI focused fintechs that are actively hunting for credit union customers.
The better news is that those fintechs can be met through the CU2.0 Mastermind Group. Drake talks a bit about the CU mastermind in this podcast - and he and a few members exhibit a bit of what it's l…
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Feb 23, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 137 David Tuyo University Credit Union and the Pandemic
You may think you have it tough managing a credit union in the pandemic. You need to talk with David Tuyo, CEO of University Credit Union, with assets edging up towards $1 billion and a growth rate in loans that's running around 30% per year.
2020 too saw sustained growth - in assets, loans, and even members. That's despite the reality that University serves a membership of what the name suggests: colleges and universities, mainly in California, some faith based (St. Mary's College in northern California and Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles), others large publics (UCLA and University of California Irvine). The kicker is that California colleges were closed for much of 2020 due to the pandemic and yet University grew.
And every University branch was closed. Still it thrived.
How? Tuyo tells in this podcast.
The credit union had had a multi-year plan to go full into digital. What had been envisioned as a three year transformation took three months.
He also notes that University's com…
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Feb 16, 2021
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 136 Pete Crear A Distinguished Credit Union Life
Know this about Pete Crear: He was the first to win the lifetime achievement award from the African American Credit Union Coalition - and when they gave him the award in 2003 they decided to name it after him.
The roster of Pete Crear Lifetime Achivement Award winners is now a dazzling hall of fame of credit union heroes and heroines, including several who have been in the CU 2.0 Podcast - Bill Bynum and Bert Hash, Jr.
The podcast opens with how Crear felt when he was told that, not only did he win the award, it was now named after him. You will like his authenticity.
Just who is Pete Crear? Here's the press release that went out when he retired as CEO of WOCCU, the World Council of Credit Unions.
The release noted: "Prior to joining WOCCU, Crear was CUNA’s executive vice president of external relations and, before that, executive vice president and chief operating officer responsible for daily operations of the Madison, Wis., office. He also served in top leadership positions at…
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Feb 9, 2021
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 135 Joel Schwartz DoubleCheck and NSF Fees
Overdraft fees are big business for most financial institutions and it's estimated that 20% of credit union members, one in five, have an NSF annually.
The worse news is that the credit union's NSF fee is just the start of the consumer's pain. Joel Schwartz, founder and co-CEO of DoubleCheck, a Los Angeles company with an innovative spin on how to best handle NSFs, estimates that the NSF can lead to perhaps $175 in ripple charges such as a returned item fee imposed by the payee of the bounced check.
Ouch.
DoubleCheck has an alternative - and, hold on you protest, your institution wants to maintain its NSF income, especially in today's economy where loan interest rates are anemic.
Schwartz gets that. He describes DoubleCheck as the financial equivalent of traffic school in the context of a speeding ticket. Go to traffic school and, usually, that wipes out the pain of an increase in insurance premiums.
What DoubleCheck's tool does is offer the consumer realtime options for dealing w…
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Feb 2, 2021
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 134 Jim Van Dyke Breach Clarity
Every day there are four data breaches. And every year literally of billions of dollars are lost in various frauds that are fed by the data stolen in breaches. Who pays the bulk of that loss? Financial institutions, says Jim Van Dyke, founder of Breach Clarity, an innovative company that wants to shed a bright light on the breaches themselves but also what any given breach means for *this *consumer.
Generally there's enormous opacity around breaches. Most organizations are slow to divulge details - and that makes it difficult for a consumer to decide on an appropriate action plan.
Breach Clarity aims to shine a spotlight on the breaches but also to tell consumers what steps they need to take to protect themselves.
Note: this is not a LifeLock type company. Breach Clarity is about research and personalized prescriptions that in many cases the consumer will take him- or herself, often in association with a participating financial institution.
Key to Breach Clarity is that its busines…
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Jan 26, 2021
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 133 Karan Bhalla CU Rise on Data Analytics
Sit back and listen. Over the next 45 minutes what you will hear is how a data geek thinks because Karan Bhalla, CEO of CU Rise, will show you.
I did not ask Bhalla to do a demo. This just is what he does.
Show him a pile of data - it could be anything: from your Safeway grocery receipts for last year through a credit union's auto loan portfolio - and Bhalla will begin sifting, searching for the meaning in the data.
Think like a quant, he says, and quant is Wall Street slang for a math maestro. Quants gave us securitized mortgages - "we had no idea how much people would lie," a quant who played a role in developing that instrument told me some years back.
But a quant like Bhalla can help a credit union figure out how to make more and better car loans and, get this, a quant can even help a credit union figure out which borrowers who are veering into default are most likely to pay up if contacted by the credit union.
Don't miss Bhalla's CU Compare which lets a credit union compare i…
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Jan 19, 2021
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 132 Ray Crouse Parsons FCU and When Small Is Big Enough
Ask Ray Crouse, CEO of the roughly $250 million in assets Parsons Federal Credit Union, if he is helming an endangered institution and be ready to get an earful.
Crouse well knows the NCUA data that show big credit unions growing (ones over $1 billion in assets) while little credit unions, and Parsons counts as small in many metrics, are struggling for air.
But Crouse does not see Parsons as endangered.
A few years ago, Crouse and the board explored how big Parsons FCU needed to be to be secure and the number that came back was $350 million. That is now the five year growth target and it obviously falls far short of the $1 billion minimum size some seers throw out for credit union survival.
But Crouse is confident the number will works fine for Parsons.
A big part of the reason is that Parsons is an unusual institution. It still primarily serves a single SEG (engineering company Parsons), it has just two branches (Pasadena, CA and Centreville VA), it has just three ATMs (but it be…
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Jan 12, 2021
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 131 Lee Wetherington, director of strategic insight at Jack Henry, on Cores and Your Credit Union Tomorrow, 2021 Forecast 3
Lee Wetherington, director of strategic insight at Jack Henry, the big core maker (Symitar is theirs), has a picture in his head of the path to success for tomorrow's credit unions. Picture yourself as a platform, he says, and, yes, a platform company is Amazon, for instance, and what makes Amazon a platform is that it creates an environment where many other vendors can also sell and consumers in turn can reap the benefits of choice and keen prices.
How's that apply to credit unions? Wetherington sees the credit union as a platform where the best, most useful finech tools are aggregated to best serve an institution's members. The credit unions with the best tools win.
A necessary ingredient in this equation: core systems that provide an open environment that allows for reasonably easy and inexpensive integration of third party tools and, yes, some core providers maintained rather closed universes. But that just won't work going forward, insists Wetherington.
Buckle up because Wether…
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Jan 5, 2021
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 130 Tansley Stearns of Canvas Credit Union Tells If Credit Union Members Are Healthier
Are credit union members healthier?
The $3 billion Colorado based Canvas Credit Union knows the answer for its members - and the answer is that they are.
That's because, Canvas, working with Filene, compiled data that looked at the health of its members versus average Coloradans along three fronts: financial, social, and health. The verdict is that Canvas members score higher on all three fronts.
That, said Tansley Stearns, guest for this podcast and chief people and strategy officer at Canvas, is excellent news - both for the members themselves but also for the credit union.
That is because she believes that the brands that win over the next 10 years are the brands that consumers believe advance their health.
Stearns hopes that other credit unions do similar research and if there is a pattern where credit unions collectively boost members' health think about the power of that messaging in getting across the credit union difference.
Doing good by members just may be the credit un…
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Dec 29, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 129 Steve Dow CEO Monit for Small Business
Suddenly a lot of credit union CEO eyes are turned to small business as the financial institutions hunt for ways to bring in profitable business.
And credit unions - many of which have been especially active in PPP lending - are finding that small business is receptive to their overture. The money center banks often are indifferent to small businesses and community banks often lag in the tech tools small businesses want in a financial institution.
Monit, a new cashflow management app for small businesses, just may be the tool that helps bring in more small business members.
Monit is not in any app stores, it is only available to members and customers of financial institutions that are Monit customers, said Steve Dow, Monit CEO. The Monit app is customized to resemble the credit union's.
Dow added that Bank of America lately has made much of its Cash Flow Monitor for small business - but Monit puts a similar tool set in the hands of small business users at credit unions and communit…
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Dec 22, 2020
CU2.0 Episode 128 Batu Sat Mall IQ - Harnessing Location Intelligence to Better Serve Members
Don't you wish you knew when a member is about to pop down a Chase credit card to buy a pricey pair of Nikes - especially when you are prepared to offer a $5 discount just for using your institution's credit card?
Just that is the thought that has powered the development of Mall IQ, a San Francisco and Istanbul based company that has won backing for FIS. But Batu Sat, Mall IQ founder, acknowledged to us that the company's ambitions go way beyond malls and it wants to connect financial institutions with customers and members wherever they are - high streets, car dealerships, furniture stores, and of course malls.
Mall IQ has digitized and mapped many shopping environments so it can know your member is in a Nike store and not a GAP. "We understand the floor plan" said Sat.
A member enrolls in the Mall IQ program through the credit unions' mobile banking app. That enables push notifications of deals, discounts, etc. when using the credit union's card to make purchases.
"This is not sp…
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Dec 15, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 127 Doug Brown NCR on 5 Big Banking Trends for 2021 Trends Forecast 2
The pace of change at credit unions is quickening. That's the central message from Doug Brown, senior vice president and GM of Digital Banking at NCR.
In a wide ranging conversation, Brown explores five key trends:
* *Channels quickly collapsed in 2020 as digital and physical experiences merged; this is only expected to accelerate next year. *Experiences were ‘de-channeled’ as physical and digital experiences converged.
Banks and credit unions are now operating in a more dynamic, distributed model, causing de-channeling to occur at a rate much faster than initially expected, in some cases three or more years ahead.
* *Branch strategy will shift to accommodate the evolution of self-service. *Branches will remain relevant, but they must adapt to become part of the larger ecosystem. There will be a continued evolution of self-service, one that includes leveraging technology to provide touchless alternatives and increased automation to enable continued access to cash.
**The ATM wi…
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Dec 8, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 124 John Findlay on Digital Academy's Tools for Getting Employees, Members Ready for Digital Banking
A dirty secret inside credit unions is that many frontline workers - and very possibly most senior staff - just do not use their institution's digital banking tools. Why bother when you work in a branch? Just walk up to a teller and, whoosh, task handled.
And then along comes a pandemic that closes many branches, and makes many members and employees leery of setting foot in the open ones, and suddenly there is a stampede to adopt digital. A couple problems however. A lot of the institution's staff cannot adequately explain how to use the tools because of their own lack of familiarity and a lot of the members who are newly adopting digital are starting at ground zero and genuinely need help.
Enter John Findlay's Digital Academy, a SaaS (software as a service) tool that aims to solve both problems for credit unions.
Better still: right now there is a 90 day free trial because, says Findlay, the company wanted to do its part in helping financial institutions and their members and custo…
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Dec 1, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 123 Octavio Marquez Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Global Banking Diebold Nixdorf on ATMs
Is now the time to bury the ATM?
A few months ago the answer looked like a definite maybe but now, says Octavio Marquez, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Global Banking, Diebold Nixdorf, ATM traffic is up across much of the US and oftentimes it is higher than pre-pandemic levels had been.
What's happening, says Marquez, is that financial institutions - credit unions very much included - are rethinking their branch networks and in that process many are also rethinking the role of the ATM. That new look at ATMs is accelerated by the reality that many of us are seeking to minimize person to person interactions. And financial institutions are also beginning to look at the ATM as not just a piece of machinery but as a useful player in digital banking.
Along the way, Marquez talks about new uses for ATMs. They no longer are just about spitting out money and taking deposits. On many we can now pay utility bills. Some can also perform KYC chores for a credit union. Some can prin…
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Nov 24, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 122 Larry Nichols of CUSO Member Driven Technologies 2021 Trends Forecast 1
Ask Larry Nichols, CEO of Member Driven Technologies, a Michigan based CUSO, what's in the future for credit unions and he has a one word answer: Digital.
Actually, that oversimplifies the answer because in this podcast Nichols and I talk for about 40 minutes about what's next and he in fact ticks off four basic themes:
* Digital banking - by which he means many, many things besides mobile and online banking. E-signatures for instance. Also digital account opening. Digital is the future of banking.
* The evolution of the branch
* The new need for business continuity planning
* The need to find new ways credit unions can support their communities in this time of need.
Along the way, Nichols evangelizes for cloud based core systems, the central MDT focus. Around 106 credit unions are MDT core customers and, Nichols says, this is a way to have the latest technologies - but to leave the hefty lifting to professionals.
He's probably right. Many credit unions would benefit from turnin…
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Nov 17, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 121 Inside the CU2.0 Mastermind Group
This is a special CU 2.0 Podcast where the aim is to take listeners inside the CU2.0 Mastermind group where credit union executives and fintech executives join together to explore new ideas, to review problems, and together - by sharing wisdom and experiences - join in reaching higher levels of success.
In this episode Ray Crouse, CEO of Parsons Federal Credit Union and board chair of NACUSO, Darryl Hicks, CEO of fintech FlexPay, and Kirk Drake, founder of CU2.0 talk candidly about Mastermind groups and along the way you will get a sense of the flavor of what a Mastermind group really is and how it works.
Consider this a glimpse into how a group works.
In this podcast you will hear personal testimony from all three on what they are getting and have gotten out of Mastermind groups - and both Drake and Hicks, longtime members of Mastermind groups, offer vivid reports of exactly how Mastermind groups have benefited them, personally and professionally.
Hicks, in the podcast, males ment…
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Nov 10, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 120 Nathan Rogers on Shared Branching and the Future of the Branch Network
Branches are not going away. That's a firm belief of Nathan Rogers, a longtime financial services executive who has spent many years in shared branching - a feature he calls a significant credit union strategic advantage.
Yet now, amid the pandemic, many credit union executives are talking. about pulling out of the shared branching networks. Why bother with it if nobody is using the branch?
Ask Rogers and he sees that thinking as short-sighted and in fact now is the optimum time to offer shared branching and thereby provide more member service without the expense of opening and staffing a branch that may in fact have an uncertain future.
Back up a step. Know that there are around 1850 credit unions participating in the CO-OP shared branching network. They have around 6000 branches collectively and that is bigger than any branch network in the US. Feast on that. The credit union shared branch network is the biggest in the country.
Along the way in this conversation we also explored…
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Nov 3, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 119 Peter Duffy on Mergers
Go big or go home. That's the bold message from investment banker Peter Duffy of Piper Sandler and for some years he has been in the thick of credit union mergers.
And Duffy is here to say there's a new trend. Used to be, most credit union mergers involved a shoebox credit union getting devoured by a bigger one. You know why that played out. Usually the small credit union had reached a point where its viability was questionable and the regulator, with winks and nods and maybe a shove, engineered a shotgun marriage with a bigger, healthier institution.
According to Duffy, that is changing and now very big credit unions - some with well over $1 billion in assets and healthy balance sheets - are talking "mergers of equals" with like sized institutions.
Why? It just is getting tough to compete with the money center banks who control an ever expanding piece of the financial pie. Add in the competition of fintechs and, suddenly, institutions with assets under, pick a number, $500 million?…
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Oct 27, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast 118 Mickey Goldwasser Chief of Staff Payrailz On AI and What's Next In Payments
Do it for me. That is exactly what more and more credit union members expect from their financial institution. Especially around payments.
Amazon's Alexa is smart enough to remind us that, based on our order history, it's now time to re-order cat food. Why can't my credit union remind me to pay my car lease, my mortgage, and the Discover bill that is always due on the 15th?
The insight of Payrailz, a Connecticut based fintech, is that the credit union in fact probably has all the tools it needs to do those reminders - even to initiate the payments for members that choose.
Enter the world of AI powered payments.
Mickey Goldwasser, chief of staff at Payrailz, said we are entering into an era of "Do It For me" - and AI makes that a very possible reality.
A member forgot to pay his/her American Express card bill - but won't that member welcome a nudge? "Usually you have paid American Express by now? Is that bill due?"
Smart payment rails can also be called upon to actually make the p…
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Oct 20, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 117 Fahd Rachidy CEO ABAKA on AI and How to Sell Smarter
Here's the fast track to making members feel they are being sold to: offer them products and services they have no interest in or use for. How often does your credit union do exactly that?
But if you want a member to feel understood, valued, offer him or her something they honestly want or need.
If only it were so simple, you grumble.
Maybe it is exactly that simple.
Meet Fahd Rachidy, the CEO of London-based ABAKA, a company in the business of harnessing AI to help financial institutions - credit unions included - better serve their members.
Fahd also is a strong believer in democratizing his tools. He proudly says ABAKA serves small financial institutions and giants. The company uses a SaaS model - software as a service - so users pay as they go and for what they consume. Some FIs spend low five figures in a year with ABAKA. Others may be high six figures and beyond.
So what you want to know is how offer members what they want. Really. Listen to the podcast where Fahd tells abo…
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Oct 13, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 116 Barclay Keith Artis Technologies on a New Lending Strategy
Most credit unions continue to wrestle with too many deposits and too few places to park that money profitably. Call this Part 3 of the CU2.0 deep dive into lending in the pandemic era and that is because Barclay Keith, CEO of Artis Technologies, has developed tools that will enable a credit union to empower business members - think home improvement retailers, contractors, jewelers, etc. - to initiate personal loans to consumers, typically in the range of $3000 to $65,000.
For the credit union, this just may be a high yield lending arena that also may well bring in new members.
For the business, a fast, convenient way for a shopper to borrow may bring in bigger and more sales.
For the consumer, this may be a quick and easy way to borrow at competitive rates.
Win-win-win.
For the consumer it typically takes minutes to complete a loan app, a process that can be initiated and completed at the retailer. The underwriting is AI powered, there's instant KYC verification, and the lending…
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Oct 6, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 115 Dan Michaeli Glia on Digital Member Service
Call this the best of times for digital member service company Glia and that is because, in the pandemic era, credit unions' traditional member service tools have fallen out of favor and so just about all of us have become significantly more digital, said Dan Michaeli, Glia CEO and co-founder.
Just a couple years ago, many credit unions looked at digital customer service tools as a "nice to have." That's changed for many and, suddenly, these tools are must haves.
Especially at credit unions, says Michaeli and that's because credit unions have always had a member centric attitude. And digital tools just may be the best tools around.
Here is what Glia says it does: "Glia creates digital-first moments that simplify and transform conversations between institutions and their customers using Messaging, Video, Voice, CoBrowsing, and Artificial Intelligence."
Even better, as service switches from channel to channel - as often happens - the context and history are retained. No more maddenin…
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Sep 30, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 114 Nicholas Hinrichsen on Smarter Car Loans for Credit Unions
Call this Part 2 of our smarter lending for credit unions. The recent episode, #113, explored small business lending with Capiform's Sherif Hassan. Listen here. This week it's time for something entirely different.
Happy with your car loan portfolio?
Many credit unions are anything but and this has become a crucial issue as most are awash in deposits and now are hunting for profitable places to put that cash to work.
Car loans could be it. But indirect lending...not so much.
Enter Nicholas Hinrichsen, an online car sales veteran who co-founded an online used car marketplace in 2015 when he raised $10 million in venture capital. They sold that business in 2017 to Carvana, which by now has grown into one of the nation's biggest used car retailers.
After logging three years at Carvana he is again starting up a new company, with $5 million in venture funding, where the aim is to help credit unions better sell car loans to their members.
Hinrichsen knows car loans and he also knows ab…
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Sep 29, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 113 Sherif Hassan on The Opportunity in Small Business Lending
Call this Part 1 of our smarter lending duet. Part 2, posting tomorrow in podcast 114, is on smarter car loans with Nicholas Hinrichsen. You don't want to miss that one.
PPP loans just may have awakened credit unions to the immense opportunity there is in small business lending. That's what Sherif Hassan, CEO of fintech Capiform, believes. The opportunity is there.
But to win that business credit unions need to speed up their lending process, said Hassan, and they also need to create a more efficient process that cuts costs.
Automation - smart technology - is the key. At many credit unions, the typical cost for funding a small business loan is around $3600, said Hassan. Capiform's tools get that cost down to maybe $360.
At that cost, suddenly making smaller loans - maybe $50,000 or $75,000, loans that often are what small businesses want - is realistic.
Community banks have long had a lead in small business lending, but CU2.0 Podcast listeners recently heard Steve Bruyn of Foresig…
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Sep 24, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Special Edition Jake Schlachter on the Eviction Crisis and the Opportunity to Reinvent Credit Unions
Now just may be the worst of times but it also is an opportunity for credit unions to reinvent themselves, by reimagining their roles and taking an active part in helping to limit what many experts see as a coming eviction crisis, as renters who have suffered enormous economic hardships in the Covid-19 pandemic are put out on the streets.
What if credit unions made available emergency loan funds to help renters avoid that outcome?
That's the question Jake Schlachter, executive director of We Own It, an organization devoted to reinvigorating the cooperative movement, asks.
A starting point is that many credit unions have more set aside than the 7 to 8% excess capital required by the regulator. What if those institutions used some of that money to help renters avoid eviction. What if....
Credit unions just might be seen as community heroes.
Suddenly, many would know exactly the difference between banks and credit unions.
Schlacter has sent out a letter to the CEOs of 1430 credit un…
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Sep 22, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 112 Steve Bruyn on the Huge Opportunity For Credit Unions to Win Bank Customers Today
*Bank Transfer Day 2020, Bigger and Better?*
*By Robert McGarvey*
*
*
You remember Bank Transfer day, that 2011 movement that brought in perhaps one million new credit union members, possibly more.
Something a lot bigger may be about to happen.
That’s the opinion of Steve Bruyn, CEO of Foresight Research who, writing in The Financial Brand, said that its extensive polling had found nearly a doubling of the number of consumers who say they intend to change financial institutions. Now 22% say they are heading to the exit of their present financial institution, per Foresight Research.
Foresight Research elaborated: “We have surveyed almost 11,000 banking customers and credit union members in 44 markets to find out what is really going on in the world of banking from the customer/member’s point of view. Then we added another survey of almost 700 customers and members to find out what the pandemic had changed in the banking industry. We found a hot spot of churn. Churn increased…
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Sep 15, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 111 The Omnichannel Voyage, Part 2 with Mark Schuiling Wildfire Credit Union
No more cookie cutter solutions. And put a branch in the member's hands with mobile tools that allow the member to do pretty much anything he/she could do in a branch.
When Wildfire, a $900 million credit union in Saginaw Michigan, set out on its omnichannel journey four or five years ago it dreamed big, says Mark Schuiling, VP of technology.
A lot of the process was doing hard thinking about what the institution wanted to be and what it wanted to provide members. From the start, however, Wildfire knew its future would be digital and it also wanted to provide members with a unified consumer experience, not the fragmented experience many credit unions offer because they have pasted together solutions provided by third party vendors.
At $900 million, however, and with only three programmers, Wildfire also knew it had to carefully pick a vendor and a tool that would suit its budget and its internal skills.
About a year ago, the process turned serious and Wildfire went all in on its di…
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Sep 9, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 110 The Omnichannel Voyage, Part 1 with Vince Bezemer of Backbase
For how many years have you heard about omnichannel banking - and you also know not many institution have done this more than pay lip service to an idea of the digital first financial institution.
About 90% of financial institutions in the US in fact fall very short of really getting omnichannel, says Vince Bezemer, head of strategy at Backbase, a digital platform provider with the tagline "Become the Bank that People Love."
That means about 10% of US FIs are in fact digital first and of course that includes many of the biggest.
But it does not mean that credit unions can't succeed in embracing a digital first strategy.
In fact now, in the Covid-19 era, many are going forward at high speed to become digital first.
As for Backbase's pedigree, know that its clients include Navy Federal, State Employees Credit Union of North Carolina, and Schools First.
But Bezemer in this podcast stresses that Backbase has tools and services for smaller institutions too.
This podcast is Part 1 of…
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Sep 1, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 109 Paul Ablack on Fintechs, Big Data, and New Opportunities in Commercial Lending
Paul Ablack knows big data and fintechs. He served as CEO at OnApproach, a big data company aimed at credit unions that was acquired by Trellance.
Ablack left OnApproach after the acquisition and is now noodling new opportunities in fintechs and especially in commercial lending for deposit rich credit unions. In that latter regard he is bullish on what he sees as major opportunities in lending for new senior care facilities and, yes, that industry has taken a beating in the Covid-19 era but that, too, may well fuel the need for new, more smartly designed senior care facilities.
The need for senior care will only grow for some years to come as Baby Boomers age (and the oldest Boomers are now 74, the youngest 56).
Throughout, Ablack sees unique opportunities for credit unions, in part because of their cooperative character. If enough credit unions share data, a powerful big data lake would be an industry asset that will help credit unions compete with the biggest banks.
If credit uni…
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Aug 25, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 108 Ralph Swoboda from CUNA CEO to Fintech Entrepreneur
Before he was 40, Ralph Swoboda was named CEO of CUNA in Washington, DC. That was in 1986 and he held the job until 1994. That was when CUNA was a big association, with a head count upwards of 1400 because it provided a lot of assistance for credit unions with back office operations.
His next job after leaving CUNA was chairman of the management committee of the Association of British Credit Unions, based in Manchester, England.
Later, he moved to CUNA Mutual where he was head of international operations, directing operations in some 30 countries, from China to the Caribbean.
Now Swoboda is managing director of CUFA Ltd., a fintech based in Dublin, Ireland which creates lending analytics software running on big data for credit unions in Ireland but expansion into the United Kingdom and the United States is afoot.
Buckle your seatbelt for this wide ranging conversation that covers upwards of 35 years of high level involvement with credit unions, literally in dozens of countries. You…
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Aug 18, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 107 Bert Hash CEO MECU (Retired) A Credit Union Life
When Bert Hash, Jr. took over as CEO of MECU in 1996 it was a $400 million institution with one branch that served municipal employees of Baltimore. In this podcast he tells about the institution he took charge of. It had exactly zero ATMs. It did not dispense cash to members - if a member wanted a withdrawal, they were issued a check and most went across the street to a bank to cash it.
Hash, who came to MECU after a long career with banks, knew there had to be changes. Within his first six months he put cash in the branch, installed the first ATM, brought in computers and prepared the institution for the battles ahead of it.
When he retired in 2014, MECU had assets of $1.3 billion, a membership of 106,000, and it had grown from one branch to 11.
I knew I had to talk with him even before I heard that story and that was because retired SECU North Carolina CEO Jim Blaine and Renee Sattiewhite of AACUC enthusiastically seconded the motion.
When I initially asked Bert, he momentary he…
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Aug 11, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 106 the Credit Union Mastermind Group
Are you ready to jumpstart your credit union's successes?
How about your personal success?
You want to know about the new CU2.0 Mastermind group - which is specifically created to help credit union leader and fintech leaders come together in small, working groups to hash out problems, solutions, opportunities.
Listen up: we are in a crisis. A health crisis and a national, indeed global, financial crisis. The impacts of what we now confront will be with us for years. You remember 2008. This is worse. And it will cause more disruption.
That's why now is the time for a Mastermind group. Because it's time for a big rethink and a Mastermind group will put this process in overdrive for participants.
Mastermind groups work. They accelerate success. In this podcast you will hear personal testimony about the power of Mastermind groups from CU2.0 founder Kirk Drake.
You also will hear from Dr. Patty Ann Tublin who shares her psychological insights into what challenges credit union leaders…
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Aug 4, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 105 Angela Russell CUNA Mutual on Race and Equity and What to Do Now DEI4
Ask Angela Russell, Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at CUNA Mutual Group, a year from now what she would want to be able to tell us about progress made in the year and she did not hesitate with her answer.
On a personal level, she said, she hoped her son would be able to go for a run outside without fear.
Professionally, she said she hoped that the conversation about race and diversity and financial inclusion would be continuing and that credit unions would still be taking positive actions, rather than today's focus on race simply fading away as just another fad.
Take a deep breath now. If you believe this will be a heavy podcast that challenges a lot of your beliefs you are right.
"We are doing better but we have a long way to go," said Russell
But also know this: Angela Russell is an engaging conversationalist (hear her personal podcast, Black Oxygen, here) who laughs often but who also puts our attention on issues we might want to ignore - but nowadays we cann…
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Jul 28, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 104 Brad Powell Redboard the Smarter Audit Software
You know the feelings - powerlessness, exasperation, maybe even anger - and know that these are typical for credit union staff involved in audits conducted by regulators.
Those audits are routine but for many credit unions they are an ordeal.
Why? Maybe 8 in 10 credit unions still handle issues that arise in an audit the same way they did in 1990, that is, a lot of email flies around to staff ("Handle the attached request from the auditor") and everything is logged into a tracking spreadsheet.
Except some items never make it into the spreadsheet. Some emails go missing. And anxiety and frustration boil over.
Those credit unions are drowning in minutiae.
Here's the life preserver.
Enter Redboard, a software tool that automates the process and, says Redboard CEO Brad Powell, the software pays for itself in reduced staff time alone.
Some audit software is hard to use. Not Redboard. When asked, Powell said it's "so easy even a caveman can use it."
He added that "we build our softwa…
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Jul 21, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 103 Pablo DeFilippi of Inclusiv on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion DEI 3
"The credit union industry needs to reflect the community," said Pablo DeFilippi, a senior vice president at Inclusiv, the association for community development credit unions, a past CEO of the Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union in New York, and a leading voice in the push for more Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the credit union universe.
He points out that, as nation, we are becoming ever more diverse. Indeed, by 2045, the US will become "minority white," according to demographers.
The time for change is here and, said DeFilippi, he hopes we are moving beyond statements alone - well meaning as they may be - and into action.
He reminds us that the nation's first credit union, St. Mary's Bank, was founded in 1908 by French Canadian immigrants in Manchester, New Hampshire, who felt excluded by mainstream financial institutions.
DeFilippi's point: this kind of outreach is in the credit union DNA, it is a mission credit unions are well positioned to fulfill.
DeFilippi w…
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Jul 14, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 102 Andrew Wang Peach Street on Mortgage Servicing
The subtitle for this podcast should be All You Wanted to Know About Mortgage Servicing But Were Afraid to Ask.
Our guest is Andrew Wang, CEO of Peach Street, a new approach to mortgage servicing that just may be exactly what many credit unions want.
Most mortgages are passed off to third party servicers for two reasons. The servicers know the government regs and how to comply and they also are skilled at cutting costs.
Most see mortgage servicing as commoditized and the only difference between companies is price.
Enter Peach Street which puts a focus on consumer experience, customer experience, and technology.
Lost at many mortgage servicers is interest in the consumer experience, if only because the servicer's customer is the financial institution that owns the paper.
Peach Street wants to win by offering a new model where experiences matter.
A lot of what the consumer needs will be delivered via self service online - but in most surveys that approach lowers consumer friction.…
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Jul 9, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 101 Renee Sattiewhite AACUC on Credit Unions, Race and the US DEI 2
Is there racism in US financial institutions?
Can credit unions make a difference in the fight to combat racism?
Yes is the answer to both, says Renee Sattiewhite, CEO of the African American Credit Union Coalition, a founding member of the CU DEI Collective which is centered around this belief: "We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion is good business and is fundamental to a vibrant, relevant and growing Credit Union Movement."
That is the key: practicing DEI is both the right thing to do and good business.
The US increasingly is a minority majority country.
So is today's DEI movement likely to result in real changes?
Or is it another well intended effort that results in little substantive?
Ask Sattiewhite and she will tell you she is optimistic. Maybe cautiously so. But optimistic nonetheless.
"This time is different," she said.
The time for change is here, she believes, a reality dramatized by weeks of coast to coast protests against racism and police brutality.
"…
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Jul 7, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 100 Coopera's Victor Miguel Corro on Race and Credit Unions in 2020 DEI 1
Something is happening, something big, when it comes to the US and race relations and this is making itself felt in financial services.
That's the strong opinion of Victor Miguel Corro, CEO of Coopera, a consulting firm - started with support from the Iowa Credit Union League - that helps credit unions meet the needs of Hispanic consumers.
That market is huge. In less than thirty years, one in three US consumers will be Hispanic, said Corro. Right now, Hispanics are about 15% of the US population.
But this conversation is about still more - the founding of the CU DEI Collective, by some 15 credit union related organizations, including CUNA, CUNA Mutual, Filene. The organization explains its purpose: "The CU Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Collective is an expanding group being formed within the Credit Union Movement devoted to furthering DEI, a shared cooperative principle. We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion is good business and is fundamental to a vibrant, relevant an…
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Jul 1, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 99 Brad Smith on the Post-Pandemic Tech You Need Now
Call it a sea change - a massive alteration of the US financial services landscape. Everything seems different today and it is because of the pandemic.
What do you need to be thinking abut now to survive tomorrow?
An interview I did with Cornerstone consulting firm's Brad Smith for a CUInsight article left me wanting more from Smith and here it is, a one-on-one podcast where we hear what smart credit unions are doing today.
Like what? Like recognizing that the mainstage role of the branch finally is over, probably forever. Smith is not saying he thinks branches are toast - he doesn't - but he thinks their role is necessarily changing as many of us have gotten accustomed to not needing the branch and many of us also are simply fearful of places like branches.
Much financial services has shifted to digital and there it will stay.
"The challenge for credit unions now is learning to sell through the digital channel," said Smith - and many institutions are playing catch up. There's no…
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Jun 24, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 98 James Robert Lay on the Real Meaning of Digital Transformation
You want to read James Robert Lay's Banking on Digital Growth. It's a book not about digital tools but rather about the transformation of community financial institutions, credit unions included, into organizations that can compete with and win against the mega banks.
Too small to do that? Nope, says Lay. That size can be a strength. It means a credit union can turn on a dime - if it chooses to.
It starts with recognizing that the traditional branch first marketing model is broken. Today's consumer is digital first. And yet at most credit unions digital is simply a bolt on onto the old branch model.
Time for a refresh. Think digital first. Flip the business model and that's the path to success.
Lay also believes that "Covid is a wake up call." He is not trivializing the damage it is doing to the health of the nation, or the finances of many of us. What he is saying is that this is the time to look for new opportunities. Many credit unions will fail because of Covid. Many others wil…
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Jun 19, 2020
CU2.0 Podcast Episode 97 PPP Loan Forgiveness: Fast Take
Do you have 10 minutes?
That's all it will take to listen to this CU2.0 Fast Take on PPP Loan Forgiveness, a topic that suddenly is bedeviling thousands of credit unions as they confront the reality of how time consuming it is to navigate the loan forgiveness process.
Make no mistake: you want to get that loan forgiven. Best guesses are that many of the loans that aren't forgiven will in fact default.
You don't want that on your books.
How long does the loan forgiveness process take a credit union that manually tackles even loan? Figure 10 to 20 hours.
That cannot work on a $100,000 or $50,000 loan.
No way.
Enter Capiform, where CEO Sherif Hassan tells in this Fast Take how to get the credit union staff time down to a few minutes, maybe an hour, max, per loan forgiveness application.
The secret: Capiform screens that guide the borrower as he/she inputs the needed data.
Call it a Tom Sawyer moment of brilliance.
And Capiform gamifies the process so it almost becomes fun for th…
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Jun 17, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 96 Steve Winninger Talking Boards and Governance
Steve Winninger is the man to talk with about credit union boards and governance.
A longtime credit union CEO - 20 years at Lake Trust - now a $1.6 billion institution based in Michigan - plus he also served as CEO at IBM Lexington and since retiring from Lake Trust he has put in stints as CEO at four credit unions (only one of which merged out of existence).
But Steve is a rare CEO. He loves talking about the role of the board and - done right - a board should be crucial in a credit union's prosperity.
But many CEOs grumble about board meddling. In other credit unions - mainly larger ones - it's the board that grumbles that they are ignored.
Sigh.
Hear Winninger's views on that dichotomy in this podcast.
In this podcast Winninger spells out the four steps a good board must take. Must. No exceptions.
We also talk about whether boards are ready and able to help in the immensely difficult decisions that loom as credit unions wrestle with the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandem…
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Jun 10, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 95 Carma Peters, CEO Michigan Legacy Credit Union on Digital, Covid-19 and CU Survival 2020 Style
Michigan Legacy Credit Union just may be a unique $220 million institution - it's the product of five mergers in five years, said Carma Peters, the CEO. And now she said the institution is on a huge digital push, an initiative that had been in the works but Covid-19 has intensified the effort.
One Michigan Legacy employee has died from Covid-19. So did a former member of the board.
All this hits Peters hard and, she said, she tells employees and also members that there is no rush to re-open the credit union's six branches
“We sent out a strong message from the start of the pandemic that the safest way to bank was for members to use online and mobile banking and webchat, rather than coming into the branch,” Peters said. “While we were hopeful that members would comply, the shift to online banking has been dramatic, with 50,000 more online transactions in April than we had in March. That’s a 38% increase.”
Peters thinks that shift is permanent and she is deep into a total r…
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Jun 3, 2020
CU 2.0 Episode 94 Nabil Hannan on Cybersecurity, Remote Workers, Mergers and Your Credit Union
Cybersecurity starts with you.
"It's about people," said Nabil Hannan, managing director at cybersecurity firm NetSPI when asked when cybersecurity goes right and when it goes wrong. He added in this podcast that Covid-19 and credit union responses have triggered their own cybersecurity issues that are very particular to today.
But they also need timely responses to thwart hackers.
Case in point: some workers are instructed to take their desktop computer home to work. Question: does that box have full disk encryption set up? Many office computers do not. But what if it is stolen from the home?
Maybe even worse, some organizations sent workers home with older machines running old versions of Windows - including XP - and the bad news is that hackers already have bots scouring the net looking for XP machines because there are readily available hacking scripts that effectively automate an attack. No computer skill is needed by the hacker who has found an XP machine.
Hannan also has wo…
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May 27, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 93 Lee Miller Renofi on Smarter Home Improvement Loans
America's housing stock is old - often over 50 years of age in much of the nation and owners want, need, improvements to live in the home they want.
The problem: many buyers stretch to buy their home and they do not have that much equity built up, even after five or perhaps even ten years in the house. But now there are two more children, maybe a grandparent, added to the family and where does everybody sleep.
Historically, home improvement loans have ignored an obvious reality: many projects significantly increase the value of the home,
Sure, some do not - pools usually, saunas, a green house.
But add a bedroom,or a bathroom, or update a kitchen and that house is worth more money.
TV watchers know that from HGTV's long-running "Love It Or List It" where after every reno, the realtor tells how much more the house is worth. Similar happens on "Fixer Upper."
So why can't a loan be created around the probable higher value of a home post renovation?
Why not indeed. That's what the f…
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May 19, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 92 Sahil Pankhaniya, A Start Up Credit Union at George Washington University
What will blow your mind as you listen to this podcast is how savvy and smart the guest is. That's Sahil Pankhaniya, a 20 year old student at George Washington University in Washington DC who is pursuing the launch of a wholly new, student run credit union credit union at the Washington DC institution.
How cool is that.
The effort has been written up in Credit Union Times, and here Mr. Pankhaniya talks for himself.
Know this: he thinks very big. What if, he asks, if they can roll out credit unions at universities across the nation? What if indeed. Not only would that get students familiar with credit unions it also would provide a stream of trained potential hires for credit unions.
The hope is to launch the credit union in the fall, a date that had been May but the coronavirus epidemic has pushed that back.
Pankhaniya and his fellow students also need to raise around $55,000 more to meet NCUA's capital requirements.
It's an exciting story.
Along the way, we discuss CUNA's "Open…
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May 13, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 91 Sherif Hassan Capiform on Smarter Lending Now
How could we build a lending tool that anybody could use?
That is the driving thought that led Sherif Hassan to form fintech Capiform and the timing could not be better.
That's because, with the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing recession, suddenly credit unions are awash with savings deposits (as investors flee equity markets) and they also see a rush of loan applicants, for everything from Covid-19 triggered SBA loans through equipment leases.
How to efficiently handle the volume?
Know that right now deposits are arriving at much large volume than are loans at credit unions - despite the member needs.
Remember, too, mega banks, for the most part, have scant interest in "small" loans which to them often means under $250,000. But to a typical credit union that size loan is ideal and even smaller may be better.
But the mega banks shy away from those loans because they don't see how to make money on them.
How could a credit union hope to? That's where Capiform's tools come in, whe…
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May 4, 2020
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 90 Bill Kennedy Tells How Many Credit Unions Will Close in the Next Year
Bill Kennedy has spent a credit union career moving from institution to institution. He has worked at 11 - "6 or 7 were turnarounds, 1 was a startup," said Kennedy.
Often he's been CFO, and he has also served as CEO. He's seen a l