The CU2.0 Podcast

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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.

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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.

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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 up

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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. 

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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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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.  

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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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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 Grobaski, 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

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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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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.

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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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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 [email protected]

Have suggestions for topics to explore in this show? Email me, Robert McGarvey - rjmcgarvey@gmail

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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 [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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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 [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