The CU2.0 Podcast

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The answers you need are in the data. Of course you know that. But do you know - really know - how to mine the data you have, and you have a lot, and drill down to the information you need today?

On the show is  Anurag Mukherjee, the Head of the Analytics practice for Credit Unions & Community Banks at EXL, a large global analytics and digital solutions consulting firm headquartered in New York.

What sold me on doing this show was when I poked around the EXL website and landed on a case study where EXL worked with DCU, the big Massachusetts based credit union, to transform how the institution managed and used its data.  Here’s the concluding sentence of the case study: “Within six months, the IT team migrated 30 months of data consisting of over 5.8 billion documents into Amazon Redshift for analysis. The data is refreshed each night, enabling the business teams to access up-to-date information on which to base decisions. In addition, each sales executive has a self-service dashboard delivering them the insights they need to better support their clients.”

For many years I have looked upon DCU as a genuine tech leader among credit unions and if DCU was turning to EXL for help in organizing its data I had to know more about the company.

In this show we hear about the work EXL did for DCU but also about what all credit unions need to do to prosper in an ever more competitive environment. We also hear about a chronic credit union problem - data from many different tech vendors often is siloed and unavailable to use in other systems from other vendors.

Throughout this is an upbeat, optimistic show where the credit union future is depicted as bright - if the institutions digitize and keep digitizing to let them compete against everything from Chase to Chime.

Listen up.

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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

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Imagine this: you and your spouse go to Appleby’s for a Valentine’s Day dinner. You pay the check with your credit union debit card and, shazam, you get 10% cashback.

An impossible story?

Not according to Joel Richard,  chief experience officer at Interra Credit Union in Indiana.  

That cashback came to him because he was using a card linked to Cashback+ which delivers cashback to members who use their debit card at participating merchants and the merchant list is an all star collection including WalMart, BestBuy, Target, Amazon and as you will hear in the show the Cashback+ system is very open to including offers from a credit union’s business members.

If you are thinking this is deja vu again you’re right.  A few months ago we did a short newsflash episode with David Metz, CEO of Prizeout the company behind Cashback+.  

What’s different about this show is that Interra’s Richard is here singing Cashback+’s praises.

Also on the show is Matt Denham, a Prizeout co-founder, who tells how the product has morphed and is now at an increasing number of credit unions.

Face this fact: credit card rewards are probably going to shrink as Mastercard and Visa fees do.  Cashout+ rides entirely different rails. This is about customer acquisition strategies deployed by sophisticated merchants.

Probably, too, many of your members are fretting about balancing their household budget. Cashback can be a very sweet plus for many American households.

And if you wonder who Andrea is, click here.

Listen up.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]
 
 

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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

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Can you pick out the bad apple?

There are lots of retirement vehicles aimed at credit union c-suite executives but the fact is they aren’t created equal. Some simply are better than others.

Back on the show today is Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union and now a leading expert on credit union SERPs (supplemental executive retirement plan), and he offers tips on what to look for in a steady SERP…and keep in mind it has to hold up usually for several decades after an executive retires.

Along the way Kordeleski tells what credit union board members need to know and do to properly review and select SERPs for their executives.  

And we also talk about how credit unions can compete against - and beat! - money center banks. Sure, they have the scale but credit unions have an edge they can use to win this David v Goliath battle.  Kordeleski relates how he did it at Bethpage.

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Your mother dies or maybe it’s your spouse and you’re a named beneficiary in the will so surely it’s a matter of presenting a few papers and some ID at the relative’s credit union and then you’ll walk out with a check.

Dream  on.

When Saeid Kian’s father died from pancreatic cancer - meaning there had been time to get his financial papers in order - Saeid assumed it would be straightforward to gain access to his dad’s accounts.  He assumed incorrectly.

Months went by as he dealt with lumbering, inefficient systems at multiple financial institutions.  

These were months of frustration, aggravation and worse.

Flashforward to now and Saeid is co-founder of Ribbon,  a San Francisco fintech that aims to help credit unions produce a better experience for heirs seeking to collect inherited assets.

Understood what’s in it for the FI to make this service smoother: Literally billions of dollars are pouring out of traditional FIs today as a generational wealth transfer of unprecedented magnitude unfolds and the heirs, in the majority of cases, are taking their inheritances to other institutions.

Part of the reason they are is that many are fuming with the clumsy, lengthy process that most credit unions have in handling estate transfers.

Ribbon makes it better, faster.  It just may stop the money leak and help credit unions hold onto some of this cash.

This is a good show about a service I hadn’t heard of - you haven’t either. And when you hear it you just may want to tie up with Ribbon pronto.

Listen up.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]
 
 

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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Welcome to the CU 2.0 Podcast Greatest Hits show.

There are over 300 shows in the library and yet a reality in the podcast business is that few of us ever even look at more than maybe the half dozen most recent shows. That’s why we are going to resurface some of the best and most popular shows as Greatest Hits.

This is show #5 - San Francisco Fire Credit Union exec Josephine Chew tells about how the institution created its we want to be your side bank campaign and she also exudes humor, creativity and wisdom about how to market a credit union.

She knows the other side of the street too. She came to credit unions after an eight year stint at Wells Fargo and along the way she put in time at Charles Schwab, Visa and other bigs.  She knows their strengths but she also knows a credit union’s.

Listen up.

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It’s a war out there for deposits. You know it.  But what you might not know is how to actually get more deposits, especially from new members.

Psst. Here’s the secret: digital account opening.

That’s what Apiture’s Jennifer Dimenna is here to tell us -but first there is this mind numbing statistic: about half of all credit unions do not have the capability to offer digital account opening.

And yet this is 2024.

How many potential new members simply log out when they realize they’d have to come into a branch to open an account - and they take their digital mindset and their dollars down the road to an institution that lets them interact digitally.

Digital account opening is becoming a must have and Apiture wants to get more credit unions up and ready online.

Dimenna also tells the necessity of embedded finance tools that will allow a credit union to bring in new members everywhere from a community college bursar’s office to a veterinary office.

Make it easier for consumers to put their money in your vaults and suddenly you’ll be winning the deposit wars.

For your background reading here’s a recent Apiture white paper on how to grow your core deposits.  

Listen up

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]
 
 

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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SELCO, at $2.7 billion in assets, is a big Oregon credit union.  It has had an active community relations - and giving - portfolio.  And then an idea took hold: SELCO decided to organize its activities and out of this has grown SELCO Steps Up where the credit union reimagines, expands, and organized its community relations portfolio.

Every credit union should be looking at doing something similar.  This is the path towards getting the most for the community out of the credit union’s talent and treasures.

“Through SELCO Steps Up, we are looking for ways to identify the changing needs of the communities we serve, and find new and innovative methods that will leave a lasting impact,” said Olivia Sorensen, Senior Community Development Specialist for SELCO. “SELCO has nearly a century of history when it comes to helping our communities. With that experience, we know that it is not enough to simply write a check. Our goal is to uplift and empower while addressing key societal challenges with a focus on issues that we can do the most good, namely financial education, removing barriers to education, and supporting students and educators.”

On the show today is Sorensen who takes us through how the idea of SELCO Steps Up took hold, how it progressed through management ranks, and how it has been embraced by the communities SELCO serves and by the credit union’s employees.

Take notes.  Similar approaches just may suit your credit union.

While we are talking about this, also listen to podcast #287, Givio on charitable giving and credit unions, and a CU 2.0 Newsflash where Joe Bergeron of the Association of Vermont Credit Unions tells why and how that state’s credit unions are helping local farmers recover from significant weather related damages through the Dig Deep Vermont campaign.

Listen up.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]
 
 

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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It was two years ago when we kicked off the first Kirk Kordeleski Money Talks podcast where the onetime Bethpage Federal Credit Union CEO talked about the rising importance and adoption of SERP retirement plans for c-suite credit union execs but also about the massive changes that are transforming the credit union industry.

There’s a monthly show, an hour of prime listening for those working in the credit union industry and also those who want to sell into it.

That means there are approaching two dozen shows in the archives.

But here is number one.

It’s definitely still worth a listen.

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This is a show about Happy Money.

Of course you have to smile at that.

You’ll smile more knowing it’s the name of a company that is in the business of helping consumers with personal loans that in turn are issued by participating credit unions and of course the consumer is memberized along the way.

So it’s also a member acquisition tool.

The key Happy Money loan is the Payoff Loan - $5000 to $40,000 - that helps a consumer pay off credit cards. Rates are as low as 12.45%.

Credit unions that work with Happy Money include Michigan State Federal Credit Union, Technology Credit Union, and Alliant Credit Union.

Happy Money investors include a subsidiary of TruStage, formerly known as CUNA Mutual.

On the show to tell all about Happy Money is CEO Joe Heck, a longtime CUNA Mutual employee who rose to vice president, business transformation.

Earlier in his career he was a manager at CASE Credit Union in Michigan.

Heck is an authentic credit union guy - if we used video you’d see him in a hoodie! - and he believes in the credit union mission and the credit union difference.  He also sincerely believes Happy Money has a significant role to play in helping credit unions live up to their mission.

Listen up.

Listen up.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]
 
 

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

Send us Fan Mail

Welcome to the CU 2.0 Podcast Greatest Hits show.

There are over 300 shows in the library and yet a reality in the podcast business is that few of us ever even look at more than maybe the half dozen most recent shows. That’s why we are going to resurface some of the best and most popular shows as Greatest Hits.

This is show #3 - a reissue of CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 239 David Metz CEO of Prizeout and Darlene Johnson, EVP of Suncoast Credit Union, on Value Upping Gift Cards

It’s a show with everything. A new twist on putting money in members pockets: ad tech. An eloquent credit union leader from one of the country’s biggest credit unions. And a CUSO makes an appearance.

Potential guests often ask me what prep they should do. I always point them to the library. Listen to a few shows before we do yours. That’s the best homework possible. And this episode is a great example of a pairing that works between a CU exec and a tech partner.

Listen up.