credit union

 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 system in your institution.

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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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

 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 by predictive intelligence.

We enable enterprise customers to identify and engage borrowers with personalized proactive experiences.

We empower consumers with rich insights & experiences to help them make smart decisions through their home finance journey.”

Integration of Senso tools – which are available white labeled – is comparatively quick and easy through the leading online banking platforms. 

Right now, the primary Senso aim is at institutions with a billion in assets – but if a smaller institution is using an online banking platform that Senso already has integration tools for, the company wants to talk, says Bharwani.

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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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

 

by Robert McGarvey

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 unions,”spells out a press release.  

Another product is Accelewage which starts with the building block that each day an employee works he/she has earned money. Now what if that employee needs a fast $300 – perhaps for an emergency car repair – but doesn’t have available credit?  He could go to a payday lender.

But isn’t the better choice simply to make the employee a cash advance against accrued earnings?

Taylor sees Accelewage rolling out initially to credit unions themselves where many employees live paycheck to paycheck.

But then the tool can also be offered to business members too and that could be a powerful persuader in getting new business accounts.

Taylor also has a range of ideas about innovative insurance products to be offered through the CUSO.

Nowadays the talk is how CUSOs have to be highly focused – and, yes, original – to survive.  CU Soul is definitely both

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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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

by Robert McGarvey

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 may well be at a perilous moment for traditional FIs as DeFi (decentralized finance) moves onto center stage.

How to get involved in crypto with minimal risk? Pruss offers suggestions in the podcast and, from my perspective, the easiest way to stick a toe into these digital waters is by offering crypto rewards.  More institutions – Venmo for instance – already are on this but there remains running room for credit unions that want to play.

And Pruss has other suggestions.

This is a fast paced podcast. Inside 40 minutes you will hear what you need to know to play in crypto. Smartly.

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

by Robert McGarvey

 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 particularly credit union mindset.  

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

 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 a sign up tool at the same site.

Want more from Cianciolo? You  got it.  Here’s an earlier CU 2.0 podcast with him from June 2021.

Want more on the CU 2.0 Mastermind group? Here’s a November 2020 podcast on it.  

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

By Robert McGarvey

 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 vault much, much higher.

So the younger generations are hopping aboard BNPL which, right now, is largely used for consumer purchases of a few hundred dollars to maybe a few thousand.

Right now it’s mainly fintechs that are playing hard in this space.

But Scottsdale AZ based equipifi is a fintech that wants to enable credit unions in particular along with some banks to play in this space.

In this podcast with co-founder and CEO Bryce Deeney you will hear about equipifi’s secret sauce which is software that can approve and fund a BNPL loan at retail in under a minute.

No application is required. No FICO score is checked.

The basis for the loan is knowledge of the history of the member’s checking (sharedraft) account and insight into how much surplus money generally is in the account.  So that’s a solid basis for forecasting that this consumer can in fact handle this monthly payment.

In the podcast Deeney tells in detail exactly how equipifi works along with how it is integrated into the core.

Any credit union that wants more members under, say, thirty years of age needs to listen and take notes.  

Keep listening and you will hear the equipifi has plans to roll out a BNPL service for SMBs too.  How cool is that?

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

by Robert McGarvey

 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 businesses that put greater emphasis on purpose, not just profit.

As for worker owned cooperatives. that’s a comparatively small slice of the cooperative pie in the US but it also is fast growing. Hear why PixelSpoke now is owned by its workers.  

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

by Robert McGarvey

Maybe it is a cockamamie pie in the sky of a dreamer’s idea.

Or maybe it is a key to showing the future relevance and importance of credit unions.

Focus on the target: solidifying the credit union reputation as the welcoming place for the presently unbanked – about 6% of us – and the underbanked, another 19% of us.  That is one in four Americans who are ignored, wholly or in part, by traditional financial institutions.

USAlliance, a $2 billion credit union that has grown out of the legacy IBM employees credit union, wants to change that. And the vehicle is Bank Dora, a branchless neo-bank powered by an app (find it in Google Play and the Apple App Store). Or sign up here.

Continued at CUInsight

by Robert McGarvey

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 the reality: we have entered the zone where tech is what matters. To quote the New York Times about Google and Facebook: “these tech companies are rich and powerful because they are the biggest sellers of advertising in the world.”

Digital already accounts for more than half of global ad spend.  Many billions of dollars get spent on digital advertising.  There are good reasons for that. You will hear about that in this podcast.

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