Everything you don’t know about BNPL and what you must know now

by Robert McGarvey

File this under: What you don’t know that you don’t know can hurt you.

That’s my takeaway from a long conversation I recently had with Bryce Deeney, a co-founder and CEO of equipifi.

Deeney and I had talked about BNPL two years ago and I thought I knew all I needed to know about it – it’s interest free, short term, small dollar loans much loved by Gen Z who use it to pay for stuff like a Taylor Swift MP3. Default rates were unknown but thought to be double digit. And there’s no way to track how many active BNPL loans a particular consumer has so lending money is definitely a crap shoot. No wonder credit unions, most of them, are sitting on the sidelines.

Color me out of touch. What I knew had been true a couple years ago but no longer, Deeney patiently explained to me. Pretty much everything I “knew” was flat out wrong.

The more I’ve thought about what I learned in my talk with Deeney, the more I realized I needed to rethink my beliefs about many other hot credit union topics such as AI, instant payments, crypto currency and more. Down below these issues are briefly addressed.

Continued at CUInsight

The CUSO Solution: A Neglected Funding Resource

by Robert McGarvey

Pick the odd man out that has no place in a discussion of where to get startup funding: angel investors, friends and family, venture capitalists, or a CUSO?

It’s a trick question because all four are good sources of capital for early-stage companies, but you probably pointed at CUSO because you hadn’t heard of it before.

Join the club: few startup entrepreneurs have a clue. But that is overlooking an important source of possible funding that may also deliver plenty of customers too.

Continued at Startup Savant

Go digital or go bust: Today’s commandment for lasting credit union success

by Robert McGarvey

There is one, very loud message in a new report from Alkami – now it is digital that matters in banking … really matters.

Understand however: Alkami has not commandeered a soap box in the public square and simply begun to chant that. What it has in fact done is survey “over 1,500 U.S. participants who currently have a bank account and are active in digital banking (check accounts, transfer funds, pay bills online, etc.) and [are] weighted to the 2020 U.S. Census for age, region, gender, and ethnicity for a very low margin of error.”

What the surveyed 1500 said should scare almost all credit union executives.

Here is one of the frightening discoveries: “Regional and community FI account holders are less likely than all other financial provider cohorts to believe their financial relationship will grow over the next year.”

Continued at CUInsight

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 projects with three fintechs she learned about there.

In the show she mentions crypto expert Joe – that is Joe Keller, a digital guru and a past guest on this show. Link to his podcast in the show notes.

And there’s also a shout out for cannabis banking leader Sundie Seefried – and there’s a link to her show in the show notes.

Here’s a question for you: Do sharedraft accounts matter anymore? You want to hear Dean’s answer.

A final thought to ponder: is Dean a harbinger of a generation shift that is radically remaking the CEO office in credit unions as Baby Boomers punch the clock for the last time? And what would that mean?

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

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 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

CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 205 OGO’s Tim Daugherty on Why Your Credit Union Needs 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 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

BNPL: Savior or hoax?

by Robert McGarvey

Just six months ago, BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) seemed to be on every lip in credit union c-suites as executives eyed the rosy reports of robust lending at fintechs such as Klarna and Affirm but then came May and Klarna laid off 10% of its workforce amid a souring of the global economy and soaring worries about inflation, certainly in the U.S. where a gallon of gasoline now is around $5, up from about $4.35 just a month ago.

Add in the fact that the CFPB has opened an inquiry into BNPL and formally requested buckets of information from leading BNPL players and, suddenly, that screech you hear are the brakes being applied to BNPL at many, many financial institutions, credit unions definitely among them.

Dark clouds surround BNPL.

Continued at CUInsight

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 be featured.

This just might be a way to get better sleep at night. 

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

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 Nevada Credit Union who is in the show as a one person truth squad. Spoiler alert: she is a raving fan of Brown and Digital Onboarding. If you are hoping for Shark Tank snark, you won’t find it here.  

What you will find is Colby’s perceptive take on what a fintech needs to know to really click with a credit union.  Heads up, fintech execs, if you don’t catch that bit you have missed gold.

Credit union execs, listen and you will hear good ways to assess if you are in fact getting what you need from your fintechs.

The format of this show departs from our pattern. Here you will hear an intro, then we cut to a one on one with Ted Brown where Colby puts in a cameo at the end, then we go to Colby on her own telling how One Nevada works with Digital Onboarding.

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              

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 – episode 46 in Season 1.        

Kordeleski did this show from a quarantine hotel in Amsterdam  after failing the Covid test required for passengers entering the US.  He is in a remarkably good mood and that may be a clue that this is indeed a guy who can help you untangle your institution’s antiquated comp practices.

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