The CU2.0 Podcast

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Sixteen fintechs suited up for the fray. Just one could win. 

Welcome to CU2.0’s Fintech Madness, Las Vegas style in the days leading up to the NCAA’s basketball tourney and you know which team won there. Say Jersey City, say it loud, Danny Hurley and his UConn team.

But back to Fintech Madness.  The competitors were all stars, many have been on the CU2.0 Podcast. Competitors went through four grueling rounds – 

Best elevator pitch

Biggest expected impact

Easiest to implement

Most likely partner

So who won? Meet Rhian Horgan, founder and CEO of Silvur, where the slogan tells the message: Retirement Simplified.

The big brainstorm here is two fold.  Credit unions have lots of members nearing retirement and as they get there they have to make some very hard decisions regarding both finances and healthcare, Social Security and Medicare. What they need is a trusted and trustworthy advisor to help them through this maze.

Enter the credit union and Silvur, a smart tool that helps a member make the right choices.  It’s the right product at the right time.

But – tip – any fintech needs to listen to this show multiple times.  Horgan is an all-star on the pitching circuit and in her performance on this show you find out why.

Incidentally, Silvur’s first credit union customer was InTouch, helmed by Kent Lugrand, a past CU2.0 Podcast guest. His is a great personal story.  You have to hear it.

Listen up – to Horgan and Lugrand.

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Go – right now – to this CU Times story about a new, bold marketing campaign from San Francisco Fire Credit Union, a $1.7 billion institution.  This is unlike anything else you have ever seen from a credit union – promised.

On the show today is Josephine Chew, who tells how SF Fire came up with the campaign and why.

The why ought to be obvious. For many – especially wealthier – members a credit union account is a side bank relationship. And that’s OK. The credit union has a very real possibility of expanding that relationship.

Along the way she talks about the creation of the ad campaign, the metrics that show its success and more.

In this show Chew also muses about the differences between a credit union and a mega bank and she knows the latter because she came to SF Fire after a lengthy stint at Wells Fargo where she finished as an SVP.

Before that she put in time at Schwab.

She knows what it is like to work at a big institution.

And now she Is feeling her way at a big credit union that nonetheless is tiny compared to a mega bank.

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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Tom Barkley has a job you probably have never heard of. At TruStone Financial Credit Union he is VP, Solutions Architecture.

What’s that mean? Listen to the podcast. He explains in detail.

I wanted Barkley to guest on the podcast precisely because (a) I had never heard of this title; and (b) as I thought about it I realized that more credit unions need a person in this role as they sort through a staggering array of tech options…but are the solutions they bring what the business units of the credit union need?  Does anyone at the credit union need them?

Barkley’s boss at TruStone is the CTO, Gary Jeter, whom you heard in a podcast last year.  That show was taped at the inaugural CU 2.0 VIP Live event in Austin Texas.  

In Barkley’s show you will also hear his discussion of why he went to Trinity College Dublin for his undergraduate education and how a Trinity history major migrated into technology.

But you will hear, too, what he is getting out of CU 2.0 VIP Live, a very different kind of credit union – fintech event.

Listen up.

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Retirement, face it, is a hugely complex issue and that is why we are fortunate to have Kirk Kordeleski on the show. He’s the former Bethpage Federal Credit Union CEO and now an executive with OM Financial Group which specializes in c-suite retirement plans.

Kordeleski knows SERPs and in this show he tells about the issues facing executives - and their boards - when they want to cash in a SERP early, for health reasons, maybe, or because they want to move onto another job. Issues are complex. Kordeleski unravels them.  

In this episode Kordeleski also muses on the conversations CEOs need to have with their direct report about their ambitions - especially when their ambitions likely won’t be met.  This is great stuff, it’s inside the mind of a longtime CEO.

Listen up.

This show is in a Money Talks series where credit union compensation is untangled.  This show will help some executives negotiate better pay packages and will also help some board members understand the ways in which 2023 credit union compensation is utterly different from 1993 comp plans, even 2013 plans because now competition for talent is so much fiercer.

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.

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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If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs.

Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds.

In this fourth podcast you will hear from Anne Legg who will tell you all you need to know about your data but what you’ve been afraid to ask.

I get it. Data to many credit union executives is just another four letter word. That’s because many institutions have poured lots of money into lots of data initiatives over the past decade and they have bupkis to show for it.

Legg doesn’t dispute that, not at all, Her spin is that data often is approached in the wrong way, with the wrong strategic objectives in mind.

Even better news is that in this show you will hear the word hadoop only once or twice and I think I’m the one who says it.

No need to grab your propeller hat before listening to this show. It’s down to earth and practical - and there are valuable nuggets for both big credit unions and little ones.

Listen up.

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If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs.

Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds.

In this third podcast you will hear from Saroop Bharwani, CEO of Senso.ai, who will tell you what you need to know about ChatGPT and similar tools from Google and Microsoft.  Right now this species of AI is on every lip and the question is do credit unions need to know about this - the answer is yes, definitely.

The next question is what should your follow up steps be? Bharwani tells us.

This is not a deep dive into the underlying technology. What it is is a high level discussion about why - really - to stay competitive your credit union needs to be moving now to embrace this AI because it will change how work gets done in fundamental ways.

The train is leaving the station. It;s time to hop aboard.

On a personal note your podcast host got an invitation from Google to test its AI tool, Bard, and of course I took it.  I’ve had it write a short Seinfeld script, a press release, and lots more. This stuff is cool.

Get Bard, or sign up for ChatGPT, or the Microsoft tool. 

Listen up.

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If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs.

Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds.

Yes, there is background, ambient noise.  Tune it out.  

In this second podcast you will hear from Mart Vos, founder of Eko, a hybrid robo advisor with the wrinkle of allowing the account holder also to personally select stocks to add to his/her portfolio.  Eko is integrated into the credit union’s app and is white labeled.  The member believes he/she is dealing with his/her credit union - and in fundamental ways they are.

Vos’s sales pitch to credit unions is that Eko will stop some of the outflow of deposits into third party investment apps.

Eko also is free to the credit union. The enrolled member pays a small surcharge to use the system. A credit union may also select to impose its own fee on top.

In this show Vos also muses about raising capital for a startup, hurdles in selling to credit unions, and more.   

Listen up.

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If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs.

Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds.

Yes, there is background, ambient noise.  Tune it out.  

In this first podcast, Paul Fiore - known as the founder of Digital Insight and CU Wallet - along with Sean Hsieh, founder and CEO of Concreit tell about Hseih’s app that will enable owning fractional shares in rental real estate.  So, yes, the spelling of the company’s name is right.

Why such an app? Fiore explains that credit unions are seeing a huge outflow of deposits - mainly into investment vehicles that aren’t widely available at credit unions such as crypto, fractional real estate, robo stock trading. He believes that for credit unions to compete they have to get with the program.

Concreit is a case in point.

In a future show from VIP Live you’ll hear about a digital investment play now offered to credit ions.

Listen up.

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You don’t know Coviance - but you do know LenderClose and its founder Omar Jordan.  

And now you know LenderClose has changed its name to Coviance.

Why? In the show Jordan tells why and he also talks a bit about what was involved in the name change.

Coviance is all about efficient processing which, generally, translate into faster lending decisions.

Looking forward Jordan is optimistic about the prospects for home equity loans and credit union marketshare.  

Especially when borrowers get the faster decisioning that is integral to the Coviance approach.

Face facts: many credit unions are very, very slow in processing loan apps. Jordan explains why you don’t have to be and he also talks about business lost when processing speed lags.

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

Ask Affinity Federal Credit Union in New Jersey how it recently came up with over $50 million - in cash - to fund branch expansion.

Or maybe ask Wescom Central Credit Union in Pasadena, CA where it came up with $59 million in cash.

The answer is the same for both: they sold their headquarters building.

But that didn’t leave them homeless.

They both leased back their HQ in a transaction that has become increasingly common in for profit America. Called a sale leaseback it typically puts many millions of ready cash in the hands of the sellers who in turn sign leases in their buildings that typically run 20 or more years.

Details on both transactions are in this CuTimes story.

Clicking around I found this CuTimes story by Ed Lopes and Steve Eimert which offered up the nitty gritty of sale leasebacks. Their company is CU Real Estate Solutions. 

So we got them on the podcast to offer the details of a transaction that remains rare among credit unions - but which many might want to look more closely at as opportunities for CUSO investments, loan participations and more multiply.

Here’s the fundamental logic of the deal. A credit union knows about financial services but is it truly expert at commercial real estate? Could it make more of a return taking the capital that is tied up in its real estate - headquarters buildings, branches, perhaps still more - putting that money to work in new loans, in CUSO investments, etc.

True enough, credit unions have been slow to plunge into this, but many other kinds of companies have turned this into a multi billion dollar marketplace. Here’s a link to one source on the size of the US market and it is huge.

You want to learn about sale leaseback.

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