The CU2.0 Podcast

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 The news is that Eltropy, which provides compliant communication tools to 300+ credit unions including text and chat, has bought POPi/o, a leader in video banking which serves 100+ financial institutions.

This matters because - a stated goal of the company - is to provide community institutions the communication tools to compete with the biggest banks.

Communication with members should be a key credit union strength. And in 2022 that increasingly means digital.

Face to face is so 20th century.

In this podcast you will hear from Gene Pranger, executive chairman and founder of POPi/o. If his name is familiar it might be because he founded uGenius, a company bought by NCR in 2013.  

Also on the show is Ashish Garg, founder and CEO of Eltropy.

This show is the debut of the CU 2.0 News Flash where we will put voices to breaking credit union news.

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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Subtitle this podcast: what a fintech needs to know and do to succeed when working with credit unions.

Just maybe knowing how to do that is the special sauce that has powered Digital Onboarding - not that many years out of the DCU Fintech Innovation Center - to having 80+ customers in financial services, mainly credit unions.

And in this podcast Ted Brown, CEO of Digital Onboarding, tells where he got the idea for a company that provides tools that help credit unions turn members into raving fans who use many of the institution's tools, from direct deposit to automatic card payments.

By the way, the more such tools a member uses the stickier the relationship.

Oh...the idea that led to Digital Onboarding's core business mission came out of talks with DCU execs who shared pain points and wishes and, click, the light bulb went off in Brown's head and the company's business plan took shape.

Brown is candid in this podcast. 

But so also is Deborah Colby, chief marketing officer at One Nevada Credit Union who is in the show as a one person truth squad. Spoiler alert: she is a raving fan of Brown and Digital Onboarding. If you are hoping for Shark Tank snark, you won't find it here.  

What you will find is Colby's perceptive take on what a fintech needs to know to really click with a credit union.  Heads up, fintech execs, if you don't catch that bit you have missed gold.

Credit union execs, listen and you will hear good ways to assess if you are in fact getting what you need from your fintechs.

The format of this show departs from our pattern. Here you will hear an intro, then we cut to a one on one with Ted Brown where Colby puts in a cameo at the end, then we go to Colby on her own telling how One Nevada works with Digital Onboarding.

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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How much do you make? Is it enough?

A question for credit union boards: Are you paying your staff, especially c-suiters, enough to stay competitive in your marketplace?

We are in an era of intense competition for talent. You know how hard it has become to recruit to fill teller openings.

But do you know that a talent war is upending olden credit union beliefs about senior talent and compensation?

It is. And this will help decide what credit unions are left standing 10 years from now.

Telling us what is really going on in credit union executive compensation is Kirk Kordeleski, a onetime Bethpage CU CEO who now consults with credit unions about compensation especially SERP.  

If you think that has to do with search exchange results pages you definitely need to hear this show.

That's Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans and they are emerging as a key tool in senior executive recruitment and retention at credit unions.

Kordeleski, by the way, is a past CU 2.0 Podcast guest - episode 46 in Season 1.        

Kordeleski did this show from a quarantine hotel in Amsterdam  after failing the Covid test required for passengers entering the US.  He is in a remarkably good mood and that may be a clue that this is indeed a guy who can help you untangle your institution's antiquated comp practices.

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 happens when you throw a bunch of ex-Googlers into an office in San Mateo California?

Enter Upstart, a new breed lending company that helps financial institutions - credit unions very much included - make more, better unsecured loans and also do auto refinancing.

Upstart comes at lending with a focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and doing a lot of data crunching.  Using Upstart's analytics an institution approves a higher percentage of loans - but also enjoys a lower default rate. 

How can that be? According to Jeff Keltner, who heads business development at Upstart and is himself an ex Googler, lots of models plain look at the wrong data when making credit decisions.

Upstart has a page full of dazzling stats about how its models perform versus traditional lending models.  Check it out.

20+ years ago I interviewed the Google founders for MIT's Technology Review magazine. Here's that story. 

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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Tell me: do you have a VP of digital assets?

Didn't think so.

What exactly would such a position do?

Good question.

That's why you want to pay close attention to this podcast with Joe Keller whose title - drumroll please - is vice president of digital assets at Visions, a $6 billion credit union in upstate New York.

Right, Endicott, New York. Not Cambridge Mass or San Jose Ca. 

Endicott. Which is pretty near Binghamton if that helps place it.

Keller, whose background involved big banks, consulting firms, and startups, might have seemed an unlikely credit union hire.

Keller was brought in by Visions CEO Ty Muse.

You'll hear Keller's first reaction to the suggestion - then discover what persuaded him that in fact this was exactly the job he wanted and why getting this right at a credit union genuinely matters.

Incidentally this show is about way more than Bitcoin.  Lots more.  We are deep into an embrace of digital assets and the institutions that get that now will have a head start.

Keller tells how he plans to help Visions get its head start.

And he also tells what he thinks a credit union's first steps into digital assets should look like.

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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How good a manager are you?

Be honest now.  Do you have a systematic way of measuring how effectively you are leading? Or is it all seat of the pants guesswork and, well, we have to be doing okay because the lights are still on?

Let's be honest. A lot of credit unions are going out of business in the next decade. A lot.

Right now there is a flood of fintechs into the credit union orbit and many come with promises and promise - but a lot of them won't be open in five years.

Ineffective management and leadership will figure into many of these demises.

Enter Julie Markee. She is a professional implementer - you haven't heard that title before, have you - with EOS, a company that teaches what it calls an entrepreneurial operating system (this EOS).

In this podcast Markee - who has worked with a number of companies in the credit union orbit - offers up a fast view of EOS' thinking and processes,

Case in point: are your executive meetings a productive use of time - or do you leave the room thinking why the heck am I spending so much time on this? EOS has a fast approach to meetings that will up effectiveness. You want to hear that.

Do you have the right people in the right seats? That's a core EOS principle and when it's not in place that organization will struggle to succeed. Find out how to get the right people in the right seats in this show.

Along the way, Markee promises links to tools you may find useful. Here they are:

How to run a Level 10 Meeting:

https://www.eosworldwide.com/level-10

Link to miscellaneous EOS resources

https://www.eosworldwide.com/eos-tools 

This is a content rich show. Think about what she says. Think and learn.

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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 Seth Brickman's career includes the US Navy (remember Top Gun? That was his motivator). Then he landed at Microsoft, he co-founded a startup Nicolette which builds tools to help parents make informed decisions about their baby's health, then he was at Amazon where he earned a patent  involving Alexa and the content delivered to its screen.

Now he is at QCash, a CUSO created by Washington State Employees Credit Union (hear CU 2.0 Podcast #56 with past QCash CEO Ben Morales).

Why QCash? In the podcast Brickman tells why but the short version is that he had reached a point in his life where he wanted to do a lot of good and he joined QCash because it seemed to him to be the vehicle that could make that happen.

Listen to this section of the podcast multiple times. Take notes. You want to get highly talented techies into your organization. Brickman tells how.

At QCash, his dreams are big. The CUSO presently serves 50 credit unions. His goal is to double that number by year end.

Partly it's that Brickman has tweaked QCash's product messaging.  It no longer refers to itself as an alternative to payday lending. Now it's about helping members through what QCash calls life events.

Don't think QCash is abandoning the people it was created to help. It isn't. The QCash focus remains making loans - oftentimes to individuals who might not qualify for traditional lending products - to help members deal with life events, from a blown car transmission to false teeth.

What's exciting about QCash is that its loans do not involve a traditional application. It connects to the core and that gives it ample insight into this member who wants a loan.  

Brickman also is expanding the QCash toolbox - for instance there now is an emergency response loan that will let a participating credit initiate lending to community members after a natural disaster - an earthquake, fire, even Covid-19 - literally within minutes of the event. How cool is that? The credit union can legitimately call itself a financial first responder.

What could be more in the credit union spirit than that?

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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Buckle up, this will be a bumpy ride.

That's because today's guest, Barb Lowman, president of CUNA Strategic Services has a huge portfolio of responsibilities - and she need to succeed to keep the credit union sector thriving.

We are in existential times.  Break out your Kierkegaard because, honestly, the future of thousands of small and even mid sized credit unions does not look bright as pressures grow in technology, in regulation, in compliance and you know the lengthening list of issues that credit union CEOs wrestle with.

Lowman's job as CUNA Strategic Services is to find ways to give credit unions competitive edges and she is looking hard at technology. For instance: how can small credit unions have good, contemporary core systems? We talk about exactly that issue.

We talk a lot more tech too - but know we also talk executive compensation and board recruitment and those are issues that smaller credit unions in particular fight with.

Can you guess the typical CEO retirement package at a small credit union? Listen: Lowman tells us.

And when you hear it you will know why many credit unions struggle to survive when a long serving CEO retires.

Lowman is a lifelong optimist. This is a cheery podcast.

So smile.

And 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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 You know the numbers.  In just the first three quarters of 2021 the NCUA approved 117 mergers and there will be more this year. In the mix is an ever growing number of credit union acquisitions of banks.

Here's the million dollar question: post merger how many members (or bank customers) will flee to a new institution. If you are going to have to learn how to deal with a new institution, why not make it a completely new institution?

Hmm.

Then I saw an article by Glia CEO Dan Michaeli in Credit Union Times that put out an entrancing thesis: "Credit unions undergoing a merger can benefit from modernizing member service with a digital-first approach.."

What if?

What if you not only can lose fewer members but get more wallet share?

Just maybe, says Michaeli, you can do exactly that.

In this podcast he talks about the 2022 credit union imperative to master digital member experience.

It no longer is nice to have. It's an authentic must have and do.

Incidentally, Michaeli also believes that a good member digital experience can help boost employee satisfaction. That's news you want to know in the era of the great resignation.

You say you think you heard Michaeli on this podcast before? Bonus points are yours.  Episode 115 was his first appearance.  

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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Is the company name pronounced Datava, Data-va, or, what's your guess?

Just as the pronunciation of the company's name may prove slippery for many, so too is it difficult to neatly sum up exactly what Gordon Flammer's company does.

But I can tell you this: when American Heritage Credit Union worked with Flammer, it grew by $1 billion. Organic growth, Not acquisition.  That has to grab your attention. Here's a link to a CUBroadcast show about this $1 billion miracle fueled by Flammer's unique way of looking at credit unions and their data. 

Here's a link to a press release about the same fantastic growth.  

His starting point: a lot of software and tech tools sold to credit unions do not do what they are promised to do and, importantly, they do not solve the problem the credit union wants solved.

So Flammer takes a different kind of look at what ails a credit union and he comes up with different kinds of solutions.

Much of what the company works on is creating better sales tools, dashboards, monitors, and so on.  But there's more in Flammer's tool box.

Along the way in this podcast Flammer explains why his company is a CUSO - he is a big booster of the format - and he also muses about the plusses and pitfalls of working with venture capitalists. For some - point a finger at Flammer - a CUSO is simply a better path.

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