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Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, said it and his endorsement in a Credit Union Times article was so glowing that I knew I had to talk with Austin Wentzlaff, CEO of startup Nook. said Kordeleski: “I firmly believe that Nook is at the forefront of something truly exceptional for the credit union industry. Drawing from my experience as a former credit union CEO, I can attest that every credit union grapples with similar challenges related to member loyalty and engagement – precisely the issues that Nook was established to address.” Just what is Nook? It’s a content serving platform that helps credit unions build closer relationships - and maybe sell more pertinent products to - select consumer groups.Once upon a time credit unions had intimate ties with members and genuinely knew a lot about them. When every member - and board member - worked at XYZ factory or newspaper or school it was rather easy to know them.Nowadays, as more credit unions have community charters and the SEG based institutions often have dozens of very different SEGs it’s gotten harder to know thy members.The degree of difficulty has escalated further as financial services have transitioned from in person transactions to remote, digital interactions.Nook’s aim is to use digital tools to build the same kind of strong ties credit unions used to have.Nook’s current clients include Dort Financial Credit Union ($1.6 billion, Grand Blanc, Mich.) and TopLine Financial Credit Union ($792 million, Maple Grove, Minn.)And it’s looking for more.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
Maybe 15 to 20 percent of your members have a neurodiverse condition - anything from dyslexia to color blindness - and, surprise, that means they will face big challenges everytime they log into a mobile banking app because that technology just isn’t designed with such conditions in mind. Enter Mahalo with its Thoughtful Banking mobile app which features a neurodiversity module. Mahalo elaborated on what this means: “Among the platform's new features are left and right-hand use modes, font color options for those with Dyslexia or visual impairments, and the ability to disable animations for individuals affected by Epilepsy.”On the show today to talk about neurodiversity and mobile banking are Denny Howell of Mahalo Banking and Tanya Holland of Park View Federal Credit Union, a $366 million institution in Virginia.It’s a provocative discussion and it leaves one wondering: why haven’t a lot more credit unions jumped aboard this neurodiversity issue?But understand this: the show is about a bigger issue which is how a credit union and a technology provider can collaborate to help solve a problem that impacts a lot of members and still wind up friends. 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
Do we still need to pay attention to a credit union’s core system?You bet you do.On the show today is Shanon McLachlan, president of Credit Union Solutions at Jack Henry and - honestly - he draws a picture of core systems that are genuinely exciting, that will grow with a credit union as its tech needs grow.Regular listeners know that usually when I mention core systems it’s wrapped in what some call sneer quotes.Mclachlan is determined to prove I’m wrong, that cores can and should be the brains of a thriving credit union.Is he right?Listen up for this perspective on a vital 21st century core.
You’re a credit union, therefore you want more business members. Business members bring a lot of revenue into an institution. Many credit unions in recent years have made a push for more small business members. Many have fallen well short of their goals.There are many reasons why but there also is a big reality: most credit unions need outside help to achieve those goals. They need to work with outsiders who truly get what building relationships with small businesses is all about.Enter Crux Analytics. They tell their story on their website: “We started Crux because we believe in the power of small business. We have experienced first-hand the challenges owners face and understand the role they serve in our lives and our economy. We have seen the current systems driving small business banking fall short for both owners and financial institutions. Small businesses need access to relevant, quality banking services to thrive. Financial institutions want to be able to engage more with small businesses, who are loyal, valuable, long-term customers. Crux is bridging the gap.”On the show today is Jacob Bennett, a Crux Analytics co-founder, who tells why Crux Analytics just may be what your credit union needs to really master how to serve small businesses - and, while doing that, genuinely benefiting your community because, honestly, much of America revolves around healthy small businesses.Crux is seeking credit unions to join a pilot. Hear how towards the end of the show.This is a show that will leave you feeling optimistic.Listen upLike 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
There’s no charge to you or to your member - and yet both will get money out of the deal.In one case a member bought a $1000 CVS gift card and got an extra $80 in cash back. How cool is that.Of course you want to hear more.On the show today is David Metz, CEO of Prizeout and a past guest on the show. (Stay tuned: that episode will soon post as Greatest Hits # 3.)Today Metz is talking about Cashback+, a white label tool that puts money back in a member’s pocket with a debit card transaction. Note that: this works with debit cards, unlike most cashback which rides on a credit card. And that debit focus works well for credit unions where many members make heavy use of debit cards and that is especially true of younger members.Where does the cashback come from? Merchants who see the program as a customer acquisition tactic. And there’s no charge to the credit union or the member.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
Hero or villain? It’s your choice. When a member writes a check, or swipes a debit card, but lacks the funds for the transaction a credit union has a choice: it can play the part of the villain and slap a big fee on the member or the credit union could use the patented toolset from DoubleCheck to resolve the situation in ways that can benefit both the member and the credit union.Face facts: you may not have long to decide what to do. The two dozen biggest credit unions - ones with assets over $10 billion - already are confronting a CFPB that seems to determined to change how they handle overdrafts.A bigger bomb dropped when NCUA weighed in with its idea to supervise how overdrafts are handled at credit unions with assets of $1 billion or more. That impacts some 500 credit unions.A revolution is afoot regarding overdrafts. Credit unions simply have to accept that changes are coming.That’s where DoubleCheck comes in.On the show today is Joel Schwartz, founder and Co CEO of DoubleCheck. He tells all you need to know about what’s happening in the world of overdrafts and how DoubleCheck can help credit unions who want to manage these changes in ways that will benefit members and the credit unions and satisfy regulators. Schwartz has been on the show twice before - in February 2022 and earlier in February 2021. He’s a good, lively guest and he knows this overdraft world.You need to know about it too.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
What’s your mother’s maiden name? Your first car’s make? Your zip code?Face facts: it’s tedious at best to positively identify members who contact the credit union and, worse, scammers know the protocols and in some cases have masqueraded as credit union employees and gotten the answers from members so they could impersonate them.Nobody like the way this is now done at most FIs, except maybe a few scammers.There has to be a better way and there is: IDgo which uses biometrics to identify the member.On the show today is Rocky Scales, CEO of IDgo, who tells how the tool works and - importantly - says the implementation is very fast and effortless on the part of the credit union.But don’t take his word for it. Also on the show is Trisha Preston at $2.4 billion Corning Credit Union headquartered in New York State. She offers an on the ground perspective into how IDgo really works for members and a credit union’s employees. Listen upLike 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
Credit unions and their members are givers - that’s just a fact but that fact also is central to the self identity of credit unions and how they see their role in their communities.Enter Givio, an entirely different kind of fintech. Over the years of this show we’ve poked into all manner of fintechs but Givio is different, it’s something we haven’t seen before and it is exciting because Givio (as the name hints) is a new take on giving.I became acquainted with Givio when a longtime friend asked me to take a look at Dig Deep Vermont, a grassroots effort to raise $45 million to help farmers across Vermont deal with the massive damages done to agriculture by recent flooding and extreme weather. Vermont is a state where farming matters, to the economy and also to the aesthetics. Vermont farms are just pretty. Most are still family owned and operated. And now some 350 Vermont farm families are fighting to survive.Enter Dig Deep Vermont, which is backed by a cross section of important local institutions, from the state’s ski resorts to the Association of Vermont Credit Unions (and there’s a show in the library with Joe Bergeron, CEO of the Association, who tells why Vermont credit unions are involved in Dig Deep. Here’s the link). How would people who want to help those farmers donate? That’s where Givio enters the story. Literally within a couple days of entering the project Givio had created 15 website buttons that direct donations to 14 Vermont counties along with a state fund. Donations pass through a 501 C 3, meaning they are tax deductible.Requests for aid also are vetted before money is turned over.Find the donate button here and see how smooth this transaction is. Know you'll also be helping Vermont's needy farmers.As I learned about this I knew I had to talk with Gary Carr, Givio’s CEO - and I had a question to ask him: Could Givio’s tools help any credit union in the US raise donations to help cope with a disaster in its community?The answer is yes - and a mechanism can be set up literally in a day or two.There’s also Givio’s app - available in the leading app stores - which is free and it allows users to direct donations to literally thousands of charities with a few clicks on the screen. Givio also has a donation tool - now installed at 30+ credit unions and banks, including Visions in New York State, Stanford Federal Credit Union, and American Airlines Federal Credit Union. This version of Givio is behind the institution’s firewall - accessible only by members - and it can be deployed in various ways including a targeted campaign to assist a specific organization or a la carte donations by a member to his/her favorite charities. Costs of installing Givio at a credit union are very, very low.Remember, credit unions and their members are givers. Givio makes it easy to give and to give wisely.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 tak
Three words: social finance software.By the end of this podcast you will know what the phrase means and why an embrace of social fiance software just might be a brilliant move on the part of many credit unions, a move that could benefit the communities that are served and also the credit unions who grasp that social finance software just might be a path to winning many more young members.On the show today is Fonta Gilliam, and it is her passionate mission to spread the gospel of social finance software.She’s the CEO and founder of Wellthi, an app that is built with the credit’s union name, brand and voice. Wellthi explains itself on the company’s website: “Wellthi is a fintech social enterprise. Our technology helps customers structure their financial goals with family and friends through your mobile banking app. Our company has over half a dozen industry awards and recognitions from organizations like the FDIC, Mastercard, Nerd Wallet, Discover and the Independent Community Bankers of America.”This is a lively show and, along the way, we also hear a first person account of how to get venture funding.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
Meet the next generation of teen banking featuring a hefty dose of parental involvement. That’s the gist of Boucoup by BankingON and you know BankingON. It’s the team behind the technology that powers Bank Dora, the innovative mobile banking app.About now your hand is probably waving because you want to point out a spelling error.Put the hand down.Boucoup looks like a spelling mistake, but, says Alexey Krasnoriadtsev, co-founder and CEO of BankingON, it’s no mistake. He picked the errant spelling because it’s a word that can be trademarked, the misspelling might per se win a little attention just because it is, and I’d add few Americans actually can correctly spell the French word anyway.But we all can kind of say it. And we know it means plenty.Right now lots of financial apps are targeting teens, even Chase is in the hunt. But Boucoup is different in key respects from the main fintech products. It’s white label, meaning the credit union name goes on it.It also gives parents tools to help teach teens about finance.There are gamification aspects as well.Also on the show is BankingON’s Aaron VillarrealListen upLike 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
Catastrophic flooding and extreme weather hit Vermont in 2023 and this has caused an estimated $45 million in losses to farmers - and you know Vermont farmers from Ben & Jerry’s to Cabot Cheese. Farms are crucial to Vermont, economically but also in its self identity.But now some 350 farm families face severe economic hardship as they seek to recover from the flooding and severe weather, An upshot is the launch of a new campaign, Dig Deep Vermont, which seeks to raise private sector monies to aid farmers in need. It’s an ambitious, multi-pronged effort that brings together multiple sources of help from state government to Ski Vermont and the Association of Vermont Credit Unions.Just what role can credit unions play in this fundraising? On the show today is Joe Bergeron, CEO of the Association of Vermont Credit Unions, who explains why there’s a need for this effort and also why credit unions have a place in this campaign and what they can do to help.Credit unions around the country can learn from this. Seemingly disasters are becoming routine - but there are important roles credit unions can play in helping recovery. Learn from what’s happening in Vermont and if the spirit moves you, donate to the relief fund.
You want more young members. That’s because credit unions have an aging problem - the average member age is mid 50s and yet the median age in the US is late 30s.Worse, as people enter their late 50s most have diminished interest in loans but they have high interest in big returns on their ready cash.Which brings us back to the young who of course often have an appetite for borrowing.Enter Barry Kirby of Union Credit. A veteran of CuneXus, which was founded to help credit unions put more products in the hands of members, at Union Credit Kirby now is helping credit unions bring in new members, especially younger members.How? In the show Kirby talks about three tactics that he says are helping credit unions attract the members they covet.Of course he’s aware of the ”liquidity crisis” that credit unions obsess about today but that “crisis” will vanish as we move into the next segment of the cycle.What will remain the same is the credit union failure to entice the young with what they want from an FI.Listen up to hear the how to.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
Your credit union has the data. The insight you need is in there…some place.Enter Cinchy, which promises to deliver new ways to get more collaborative insights out of data. That will also ease the pains - and costs - of data integration projects that often give credit unions more frustration than satisfaction.Sounds too good to be true? The skepticism is understandable but on the show today to tell how Cinchy works is Ty Robbins, Field CTO. But it’s the title Robbins used to have that jumpstarted my interest in listening to him.He came to Cinchy from First Service Credit Union where he had been Chief Data Officer and before that he had been SVP and CIO at People’s Trust Federal Credit Union. Ty Robbins knows credit unions and their data, both the pains and the potentials, on an intimate basis. Before joining Cinchy he had been a customer at First Service.He says he made the leap to Cinchy to spread the news about these tools to more credit unions.Face reality: credit unions are at an existential moment with data. Big banks use data to win. Credit unions need to get the same from their data.Robbins and Cinchy say they know how.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
Cyber threats are just about everywhere nowadays. That is fact and also facts are that credit unions, as a rule, strive for a high level of defense - and yet many still get hacked.Explaining all this on the show today is Chris Clements, vice president of solutions architecture at CISO Global.The show starts with Clements revealing he spent his morning hacking into a credit union. It was pretty easy, he says.Of course he also did it at the request of the credit union which, in the process, found out its defenses are more porous than they wanted them to be. But paying Clements to attempt to hack in is a lot cheaper than paying off a hacker who hacks in to collect a payday holding the credit union’s data hostage.Along the way, Clements tells what a credit union needs to do to stay safe - and running anti virus and a firewall are just the beginning.It’s a fast paced show on a topic that frankly doesn’t get the attention it deserves.Listen upLike 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
Treasury Management. Quick now, what does it mean at a financial institution?The honest answer at most credit unions is dunno. That’s because few have any meaningful treasury management capabilities.The big banks do. And they are scooping up businesses and high net worth individuals who want the benefits treasury management delivers.Which are? In a sentence treasury management is managing a company’s daily cash flow and maximizing the results.It’s about money in motion to create a return.And it’s coming to credit unions, thanks to Tru Treasury, a CUSO formed to bring these tools to credit unions, both large and smaller.On the show today is Jeff Sharkey, a vice president at Tru Treasury. What he does in the next 40 minutes is demystify treasury management and also put forth a cogent argument about why just about every credit union would benefit from a treasury management program.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
Two words tell the focus of AVANA CUSO - commercial lending.You probably like the sound of that and that’s because just about all credit unions want to do more commercial lending but, as many have discovered, this is a niche that demands focused skills to succeed. AVANA CUSO has been at this work for decades and it works with hundreds of credit unions who are able to participate in loans, thus reducing risk on any one loan.On the show is Shivan Perrera, a senior vice president, who tells what AVANA CUSO can do for credit unions. He discusses in detail how AVANA”s process works and -importantly - says that although a few very big credit unions work with AVANA, most are under $1 billion.He also talks about AVANA’s expansion from a focus on commercial real estate lending to an embrace of a range of commercial loan products.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
The word in credit union csuites is AI. Artificial intelligence.Some cheer its coming, some sink into fear but - here’s the fact - AI is coming.And Saroop Bharwani is back on the show to provide us with a wrap up of AI’s status in credit unions as we end 2023 and some forecasts about AI at credit unions in 2024.Saroop’s big message: the AI train is leaving the station. Hop aboard now. Don’t miss it.In this show Saroop also talks about the startling events at ChatGPT as the year neared its close - the CEO is fired, hold on, he’s reinstated, What was that all about? Saroop gives us best guesses.He also updates the status of Google’s AI project now called Bard Gemini. It’s powerful and worth a close look.Face facts: AI is now a must know about for CU execs. That’s why this is a must listen 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 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto
Rebecca Bacon has loan paper to sell. Billions of dollars of paper.That’s because she works with Upgrade, a San Francisco based fintech that issues credit cards, makes auto loans, writes personal loans and then it sells the paper to some 200 financial institutions, mainly credit unions says Bacon.Most are big - she names Pen Fed as a buyer - but Upgrade also works for small institutions too.If you want memberized paper, Upgrade is a provider.The company says on its website: “Our credit union partners utilize our flexible balance sheet solutions to solve for margin compression, balance sheet diversification, liquidity management, and income replacement.“We have facilitated $24 billion in loans, including over $9.5 billion in 2022 alone.”It’s no news to you: many fintechs want to eat your lunch.Upgrade wants to share its lunch with you.Implementation of the tech is fast and easy, says Bacon. She explained that most FIs are active inside 30 to 60 days.And she estimates Upgrade has memberized around one million people.Listen upLike 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
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 upLike 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
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 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