The CU2.0 Podcast

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 Are you earning enough at a credit union?

Here's the bad news: it's not easy to figure out the right answer to that question. Information about executive pay at credit unions is not easy to come by.

Here's the worse news: If a top exec at a credit union is underpaid, very probably most of the executive staff is too - and that is an institution that will find it ever harder to compete against the growing numbers of credit unions that get it, that understand they have to pay their execs appropriately if they want to attract talent.

Also know that exec compensation is not a matter of what's in your pay packet on Friday. Today's compensation has multiple moving parts and salary is just one piece. There also are long term incentive clauses, SERPs (supplemental executive retirement plans) and still more wrinkles.

This has all gotten very complicated.

Here to demystify executive compensation is Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, one of the nation's biggest, and now an executive at OM Financial Group, which specializes in SERPs.

Want to know more about SERPs - or other matters raised in this podcast? Email Kordeleski [email protected]

This show is the first 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 2022 credit union compensation is utterly different from 1992 comp plans, even 2012 plans because now competition for talent is so much fiercer.

Have suggestions for topics to explore in this show? Email me, Robert McGarvey - [email protected]

Listen up.

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 You know the numbers.  More credit unions are merging now and - crucially - more big credit unions are merging.  I give you the marriage of $2,7 billion Capital Communications with $5.5 billion State Employees in Albany NY.

That takes your breath away.

But Peter Duffy, managing director at Piper Sandler, says in this podcast that - to paraphrase - you ain't seen nothing yet.

Size now is table stakes for survival in financial services.

Where once $100 million in assets was thought to be the scale needed for a credit union to survive, think much bigger now.

Duffy - a past guest on the podcast back in 2020 - shares his view from the field of what is happening in regard to mergers and credit unions and what to expect in a near-term future.  

One takeaway: think merger and your institution. Because it just may be coming your way.

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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Meet Michele Dean, CEO of Suffolk Federal Credit Union on Long Island in New York and that is a $1.5 billion institution.

That makes Dean one of few female CEOs of big credit unions - and in this podcast she talks about that. She also talks about her credit union mentor, Kirk Kordeleski, who hired her when he was at Bethpage and who gave her increasing responsibilities that put her on the path to senior leadership.  You know Kordesleski. He's twice been a guest on this podcast, most recently talking about creative credit union compensation strategies. Link in the show notes.

Dean gets animated in talking about what Suffolk needs to do to stay competitive in a region where three credit unions are bigger, and one of them is much bigger.

How to survive? According to Dean it will be by harnessing smart tech and she is on the hunt for just that.

Proof: your podcast host met her a few months ago at an Austin Texas conference hosted by CU 2.0 - and, she says, she already is pursuing tech projects with three fintechs she learned about there.

In the show she mentions crypto expert Joe - that is Joe Keller, a digital guru and a past guest on this show. Link to his podcast in the show notes.

And there's also a shout out for cannabis banking leader Sundie Seefried - and there's a link to her show in the show notes.

Here's a question for you: Do sharedraft accounts matter anymore? You want to hear Dean's answer.

A final thought to ponder: is Dean a harbinger of a generation shift that is radically remaking the CEO office in credit unions as Baby Boomers punch the clock for the last time? And what would that mean?

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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 Close a Series A round and that's a sign the venture capital community believes this is a company with a definite future.

Congratulations to equipifi, which just closed a $12 million financing round.  

In this podcast equipifi CEO Bryce Deeney - a December 2021 guest on the podcast in a full length show - tells why equipifi impressed VCs, what he sees as the company's future, and why credit unions need to be looking hard and now at deploying BNPL.

Yes, BNPL has recently hit some bumps in the road - I explore that in a recent CUInsight blog - but Deeney is confident that BNPL will win a place in the lending portfolio of most credit unions.

A key will be smart, savvy deployment. He talks about this.

Don't miss this podcast. You need to get BNPL on your institution's roadmap. Starting about now.

Listen up.

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 You know Paul Fiore.  He's the co-founder of Digital Insight - a grand dad of online banking and still in use at numerous credit unions today. Fiore has been on staff at credit unions, he also was a founder of CU Wallet, an innovative attempt to create a uniquely credit union mobile payments tool.

Now Fiore is spending much of his time noodling crypto and looking for ways for credit unions to play a part.

Know this: he still very much thinks credit unions need to offer crypto solutions to members. Otherwise, some members will just take their money elsewhere.

Also know that as this show was recorded in late June 2022, Bitcoin was down about 50% from a high a few months earlier. It had lost $20,000 in value in that span!

Fiore said he is holding his crypto and he adds that the big investors in crypto whom he knows are doing likewise.  It's a down cycle for many markets, not just crypto, he says.

Don't panic.

And credit unions, he insists, still need to be investigating what crypto they need to be offering their members.

Listen up.

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Now it has become time to fear the unknown unknown.

That is a mantra of Amanda Cohen, the director of governance, risk and compliance products at Resolver, a developer of risk and security management software.

Consider this podcast an extension of the themes and realities brought up in last week's podcast with OGO's Tim Daugherty on BCP, Business Continuity Planning.

In this show with Cohen we are edging further into the wilderness of risk and pondering the risks that are out there but we just don't know them yet.

What hooey?

Indeed, just as talk of a pandemic was hooey in, say, December 2019. And talk of a war in middle Europe surely was ridiculous in February 2022.

And let's not even mention Hurricane Sandy, the Great Resignation and how about all those teller jobs you just can't seem to fill.

There are so many risks to contemplate nowadays and what Cohen presents is a disciplined perspective on how to come to grips with the risks you face whether you know them or not.

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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 Just how good is your institution at digital - and do know that today digital is the financial services superhighway.

Just maybe there is no need to guess about the maturity level.

That's because Finalytics has issued a free Digital Maturity Index - download here - where many credit unions share their own grades of how they are doing in terms of setting and achieving digital goals.

An upshot: credit unions have a long way to go before claiming excellence in this.

A piece of good news: many credit unions now seem more aware of their digital shortcomings than they perhaps did 10 years ago.  

A key finding in this report: 84% of respondents acknowledged that digital is key to their institutional future.

Telling about the report - and the reactions received - is Finalytics CEO Craig McLaughlin.  

Listen up.

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The pandemic. The Great Resignation. Oregon wild fires. Tornados in Kansas.  Face facts: it is tough to know how to deal with the next disaster that comes on your scene because who knows what that will be?

This century - from Katrina to the war in Ukraine - has been a wild ride filled with the unpredictable.  It has become essential for every c-suiter to live by the Boy Scout motto, Be Prepared.

But that isn't easy when there's no knowing what you need to be prepared for.

This is where Tim Daugherty enters because in this podcast he tells what a credit union needs in a business continuity plan - and he also muses about the maybe 25% that do not have a realistic plan in place.

Joining him is Shane Butcher. a CU 2.0 Podcast veteran and director of CISO Services at OGO, who offers insight into where data and hackers figure into BCP.

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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 What a difference a few months make.  Earlier this year the hot idea in CULand was BNPL, Buy Now Pay Later tools that allow a consumer to pay for an item - anything from a pizza at GoldBelly to a fancy exercise bike - over multiple months.

But now CFPB is asking BNPL players for lots of info about their practices, regulations are probably coming, and changes are afoot.  

Add in sky high inflation - and its impacts on consumer wallets and also the cost of money -  and suddenly, in some quarters, BNPL is just another four letter word, not to be uttered in polite company.

But let's not exaggerate. Just this week Apple announced its intent to get into BNPL.

Now are you confused? Here the unravel our confusions is Paul Davis from SRM who tells about a recently issued white paper on BNPL and its findings for credit unions.

Of particular note is that SRM sees a continuing role for BNPL but stresses that it be viewed not as a standalone but as a component of a holistic product set.

Davis also tells what a credit union needs to do in deciding where and if to deploy BNPL and he suggests that credit unions are well positioned to integrate BNPL with consumer financial education tools.

Listen up to this installment of the CU 2.0 News Flash where we give voice to credit union news.

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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 If you are a credit union executive you should be staying up at night chewing on this question: how do we survive in an age of relentless technology innovation and an increasing consumer acceptance of trusting their financial services to a fintech.

Tossin' and turnin'.

Guy Messick, a retired lawyer who now serves as CEO of NACUSO Business Services, is a man you want to hear.

NACUSO Business Services is a recent offshoot from NACUSO, the trade group for CUSOs and the credit unions that own and use them, and this offshoot has a specific focus which is to help credit unions and CUSOs hook up, especially CUSOs with a fintech focus.

Messick believes that CUSOs are a tool that potentially give credit unions an enormous marketplace advantage.

But he also knows that the two need a place to meet and mingle and get to know each other and each other's needs and wants. Thus the rise of NACUSO Business Services.

Its offering include a listing marketplace where many fintechs just might want to be featured.

This just might be a way to get better sleep at night. 

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