The CU2.0 Podcast

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Title this show everything you need to know about fraud today but have been afraid to ask.

Start with this: Fraud is big and getting bigger.

That is the worrisome message delivered by Rene Perez, a fraud expert with Jack Henry, and seconded by Stephanie Ziegler, director of financial investigations at SELCO, a $2.8 billion credit union headquartered in Oregon.

Perez is on the show to discuss Jack Henry’s new Financial Crimes Defender tool and Ziegler and SELCO are early adopters and she tells why.

Much of the show is devoted to discussing trends in financial institution fraud - and the criminals just keep getting slicker and more sophisticated.

Credit unions can - and are - successfully fighting back but a key realization is accepting that the fraud tactics keep changing.

Nowadays, for instance, a huge problem, said Perez, is that criminal organizations are seeking to implant crooked employees in financial institutions and fintechs.  Perez and Ziegler discuss their organizations’ defenses against this.

Another mushrooming trend: account takeovers are epidemic.

The bottomline reality: fraud is an immense problem for all credit unions - and what you don’t know can indeed hurt you.

Listen up.

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Can a banker successfully transition into a senior role in a credit union?  

Can a credit union deploy a financial wellness initiative that also works as a competitive edge in marketing?

Kevin Miller, CEO of $5.7 billion Travis Credit Union in Northern California, is on the show today and he is guilty of that banking background but he has logged 4+ years as Travis CEO.

And he also strongly believes that not only are financial wellness initiatives a key part of a credit union’s doing good in its communities, they also are a competitive edge against both mega banks and community banks.

As for Miller’s past work experience, he logged 4+ years at regional bank TCF as EVP of retail banking, 2 years at Santander, 4 years at BMO, and 6 years at Bank of America. A stint at a fintech rounded out his background.

In the show he explains why he jumped into a credit union and why hiring bankers is good business for a credit union.

Listen up. 

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Two threads run through this show: the human impacts of AI and the credit union of the future.

Ultimately the threads are connected.  If a credit union is its people, what is it when AI does an increasing amount of the work in a credit union?

On the show to explore these ideas is Nenuca Syquia, CEO of BoxD, “Better Organizations by Design,” a Silicon Valley consultancy.

Herself a longtime credit union member, Nenuca is convinced there are important roles for credit unions to play in our lives in the future - and part of getting there is asking and exploring tough questions such as what happens to our people as agentic AI takes over more and more tasks?

What happens indeed?

Be prepared to mull on very big ideas as you listen.

Listen up.

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When will instant payments come to smaller credit unions?

Perhaps the better question is: Will instant payments ever come to smaller credit unions?

On the show are Bob West, CEO of CUSO CU*South, which serves  some 360 credit unions (in 42 states, not just the south), and Keith Riddle of Payfinia, which has launched an instant payment platform that integrated with CU*South’s technology - meaning it’s straightforward for a CU*South customer to integrate into Payfinia’s tools.

Now get this: most CU*South credit unions are smaller institutions.  Lots are under $350 million in assets.

What might have seen a dream - available only to the likes of Chase and Navy Fed - now is available to small institutions.

Does it matter?

Will members use this instant payments technology?

Instant payments are a reality - that’s a fact in today’s immediacy economy.  Credit unions need to climb aboard this train.  

Listen up

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How does a lawyer - by education and employment history - become a top executive at fintechs?  

Good question.  But here’s another one: how can a fintech help credit unions win members for savings accounts paying in the vicinity of 4% APR?

On the show is Alastair Wood, CEO of Raisin, a fintech that helps credit unions market innovative products - high yield savings included - to attract new members.

Understand, Raisin does essentially all the lifting involved in marketing and opening new accounts for new members.  Memberization included.  

Raisin, by the way, is relatively new to the US market. But it has a long history in Europe.

This episode starts with Wood explaining why, just maybe, a trained lawyer is an ideal leader for a fintech, especially one operating in a highly regulated environment.

Wood, by the way, traces his hands on involvement in fintechs and credit unions back to a multi year stint at Silvur, whose CEO, Rhian Horgan is a past CU 3.0 Podcast guest.  

Listen up.

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Can a credit union be a credit union without human employees?

Are credit unions, in the age of AI, at risk of losing the humanity that distinguishes them?

In this provocative episode, keynote speaker Joshua Evans, who bills himself as an expert on the workplace of the future, talks about how AI is transforming credit unions, how parts of this are to the good, but, he insists, credit unions need to maintain their humanity.

That’s a lot to think about but it’s thinking that needs doing today as - plainly - AI is transforming many workplaces, credit unions included.

How often did you use AI yesterday?  

When a member contacts your credit union is he/she greeted by a human - or an AI bot?

Incidentally, Google Gemini tells me that a credit union needs humans on its board.  That’s non negotiable.  An LLM or AI bot cannot be named to a board seat.

And Gemini raises a philosophical topic: “The credit union movement is built on the ‘People Helping People’  philosophy. A 100% automated entity would likely struggle to maintain its tax-exempt status or its identity as a ‘cooperative’ if there is no human community to cooperate.”

Listen up.

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Careful or courageous?

Which are you?

James Grenon, vice president of administration at Summit Credit Union, a mid-sized institution in North Carolina, raised exactly that question in a recent CUInight story entitled: “Careful or courageous: The leadership choice that shapes culture.”

Regular listeners know I have a bugaboo about what I see as the unhealthy risk aversion of many CU executives and boards so you can guess I am all in on Grenon’s topic.

Grenon sets the stage with a heavy snowfall in North Carolina.  His young daughters hadn’t even seen so much snow, they initially were frightened and wanted to stay inside.

Grenon picked up the story: “they bundled up anyway. Carefully at first. Testing their footing. Adjusting their pace. Before long, there were snowball fights in the yard, sled runs down the hill, and laughter echoing through the neighborhood with other friends.

“They respected the conditions. But they did not let the conditions decide for them.

That is the balance leadership requires. Acknowledge risk. Prepare for it. But do not let caution become confinement.”

In our conversation we explore the cautious-courageous dynamic at credit unions involving everything from a core conversion - a recent project at Summit - to the roll out of AI initiatives.

Meantime, fintechs embrace risk.  They grow in part by taking risks.  Nobody is saying credit unions should be as ready to plunge into risk - but should they take more risks?

Listen up.

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Come join Peter Rice, CEO of $2.3 billion Hanscom Federal Credit Union, on a walk.  A Long walk.  70+ miles.  On the Camino de Santiago in Spain and Portugal.

Rice did that walk three times for his book Break or Become: How Hard Roads Make Good Leaders.

What’s the book about? In an hour long podcast Rice explains and, listen up, it’s about the death of a spouse, raising two young boys as a single dad, entering a second marriage, and lastly a Camino with two co-workers.

Stuff goes wrong.  Stuff goes right.

In the walks Rice explores big topics: what’s a leader’s role, what’s a father’s role, what differentiates credit unions, what’s the future of credit unions, and why would a groom wear kilts to a wedding in Lisbon, Portugal?

Rice by now has added one more Camino to his achievements and, as for your host, I have done two and must admit Rice’s enthusiasm for the path has triggered in me a desire to add one more.

But know this is not so much a book about walking the Camino as it is about leadership -- but it just may be the most unusual leadership book on the shelf.

There’s a link in the show notes to the book, buy it.

Rice has been on the show before In 2021 he talked about helping members manage stress.  In 2025 he had been named CEO at Hanscom Federal Credit Union and he returned to the show to talk about credit union federal tax exemption, even the history of his native Ireland. Links to those shows are in the show notes.

When he told me he had published a book, I had to get him on.

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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Can bill pay be revived at credit unions?

You may remember, perhaps a generation ago, when bill pay was revered by financial institutions because it was viewed as creating stickier members who, having inputted a dozen or two bill pay recipients, were reluctant to change FIs because of the work involved.

Bill pay lost a lot of its stick when various fintechs rolled out widgets that collected billpay data so it could be transferred to another institution.

The death blow came when many vendors - including most credit card companies - created auto pay tools where a user can choose to pay the minimum or the balance due or amounts in between automatically.  That’s what I use to pay all my recurring bills and the closest I’ve come to using oldfashioned bill pay is when I’ve paid contractors with Zelle a couple times.

Cary Strange is on the show to tell how PayOnward plans to change that current practice and, hold on, know that PayOnward is a portfolio company of Black Dragon Capital which talks about PayOnward this way: “PayOnward is a cloud-native universal payments platform that empowers Community Based Financial Institutions to offer a full suite of AI driven digital payment solutions for both business and consumers through an easy to use and efficient integrated solution.”

Now know that Black Dragon Capital  is a private equity firm founded by Louis Hernandez, Jr. a dozen years ago.  He’s a longtime credit union tech innovator - think the DNA core system. Hernandez is not a guest on this episode but he is much referenced in it.

Listen up.

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The NCUA looks to be getting a new board chair: John Crews, a longtime Washington DC hand and currently Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Treasury Department.  Prior jobs include Policy Director of the Senate Banking Committee and Policy Advisor to House majority leader Steve Scalise.  He’s a guy who knows his way around inside the Beltway.

There’s an urgency to his nomination because present  NCUA board chair Kyle Hauptman has been named to the board of the Public Company Accounting Oversight board.  Hauptman also is the only member of the NCUA’s current board. There are two other seats but their occupants presently are involved in litigation and no longer serve.

Will Crews cross the finish line in the Senate and assume the top job at NCUA?

On the show is Washington DC lobbyist Elizabeth Ergubian, herself a former staffer at NCUA where she served as  Director of External Affairs & Communications and Policy Advisor to the Chair.

Before that she was Deputy Chief Advocacy Officer & Senior Counsel at CUNA.

She knows the Beltway doings, she knows credit unions, and here she tells what to expect in Crew’s confirmation hearing - and when to expect it.

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