The CU2.0 Podcast

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You have never heard a CU2.0 Podcast like this one.  This is a podcast where sacred cows are roasted on an open spit, criticisms are hurled at regulators, huge questions are raised about the wisdom of credit unions emulating bankers, and then there is the giant question about the industry's future.

Welcome to the CU2.0 Podcast. This is your host, Robert McGarvey.  Today's guest, Bill Brooks, presently serving as a credit union doctor who is helping to save an institution in Maryland.  Earlier he worked as an NCUA examiner.

Brooks knows where the bodies are buried and here he draws us a map.

He also talks abut the why of the 2008-2010 mortgage meltdown, the looming meltdown in car loans, and why many credit unions have betrayed their core mission of focusing on members of modest means.

Double whew.

Hear the Brooks podcast here.

In this podcast there are references to multiple guests on earlier podcasts including Jim Blaine, Bucky Sebastian, Maine Harvest, Bill Bynum, and Cliff Rosenthal.  

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]

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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Do what you do best and let us do the rest.

That's the one sentence pitch for Exclamation Services, a Wisconsin CUSO that sees its mission as helping smaller credit unions - under $500 million in assets - thrive.

Every year hundreds of credit unions, mainly small, vanish - typically in mergers.

But what if those credit unions could hire a la carte services such as marketing, HR, IT, and back office - and in fact get higher quality workforces, at lower cost, because these are shared services via Exclamation.

Remember that: Exclamation is offering an alternative pathway to merger. A path that will let smaller credit unions survive.

Alan Bergstrom is CEO of Exclamation and, he said, Exclamation presently serves around a dozen credit unions, including one as small as $28 million and some as large as $500 million.

Geographic reach is mainly Wisconsin but the plan is to go broader because the Exclamation services adapt well to remote delivery.

This is an exciting option that just may help thousands of credit unions survive.  Sharing is baked into credit union DNA and this is real sharing.

Hear the Exclamation podcast here.

Mentioned in this show is CUNA's "Open Your Eyes" campaign.  Listen to our podcast with Teresa Freeborn on that effort.

Also mentioned is a Ron Shevlin podcast where he said that community banks are making a new push into retail banking - hear the details here.  

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]

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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Shane Butcher is a security guru at CUSO Ongoing Operations and lately has been busy helping numerous credit unions safely transition their employees to working from home.

The good news: credit unions that approach this methodically, carefully will probably be able to mitigate risks.

The bad news: credit unions that rush into this, haphazardly, with inadequate employee training may not.

One key: stress to employees working from home that they need to practice the very same security awareness as they do in the office. No shortcuts.

Butcher also warned that very probably cyber criminals are preparing to attempt to feast on remote credit union workers.  The risks are real.

Note, too, that Butcher's OGO experience entails working with credit unions with assets under $100 million to ones with substantially over $1 billion. It's a diverse customer mix but that gives him perspective on what is realistic, what is needed, what can happen.

"A lot of our customers are asking for help getting their remote workers online."

His three word cure for a lot of today's credit union security worries: training, training, training.

Butcher has significant concerns about BYOD access to the institution's network - listen up find out why. But it starts with this: "we don't know what's on home devices" and that can range from malware to spyware to worse.

Hear the companion podcast on credit union remote workers with Kevin Langford of Georgetown Kraft Credit Union in South Carolina here.

Hear the Butcher podcast here.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]

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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Suddenly credit unions across the nation are ordering employees home, as part of the response to the coronavirus pandemic.  And that is triggering a tidal wave of worries about the possible cyber insecurities that will result as newly empowered employees log into the credit union networks.

Hitherto, at many credit unions, the workers who had home access to the network were mainly senior, experienced, and both well trained and well equipped.

Today's newly drafted home workers often lack the right equipment and their training may have been brisk.

Global cyber criminals are said to be eyeing these workers the way a hungry lioness eyes a slow wildebeest in the Serengeti.

 That's why you want to hear from Kevin Langford, chief information officer at $140 million Georgetown Kraft Credit Union in South Carolina.

Langford has trained many workers in the secrets of safe cyber work at home and here he tells what every credit union needs to be doing.

This topic is so big that next week we will post another podcast on the same theme with Shane Butcher, senior solutions and security architect at CUSO Ongoing Operations.  

You need to listen to both.  The risks are extraordinary today and here are solid suggestions for navigating turbulence securely.

The UPS scam info is here.

The dropped USB drive info is here.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]

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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Who will win: community banks or credit unions?

War on.

A keen observer is Ron Shevlin, diretor of research at Cornerstone Advisors and author of a new report, What's Going on in Banking 2020.  It's a data rich report. Download it, read it.

Shevlin was an early guest on the CU2.0 Podcast - Episode 21 - and he's back in this wide ranging conversation about credit unions, technology, and ways to win.

For instance: can community banks regain a hold on retail banking, a niche they ceded to credit unions some years ago?

Can credit unions succeed at taking business banking from community banks?

A growing trend, per Shevlin, is that consumers have multiple checking account relationships that they seek to optimize - and a key is how easy it is to quickly move money around today.  What does your institution know about this?

A credit union failing is a persistent belief that "our success is our people," said Shevlin.

Millennials are more focused on technology.

"It is not about people, it's about meeting members' needs," said Shevlin.

He also gives a formula for succeeding in financial services today. It comes near the end of the podcast. Listen up.

There's a reference to Bill Bynum, CEO of Hope Credit Union. Hear his podcast here.

Listen to the Shevlin 2 podcast here.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]

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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Talking About the Real Credit Union Mission with Bill Bynum, CEO of Hope CU

By Robert McGarvey

Hope. That one word powerfully sums up the mission of Hope Credit Union, a Mississippi delta based community development credit union with more than $280 million in assets.  And Hope is bringing financial hope to people across the deep south who may not have had a lot of that.

How does Hope do this and stay solvent? Listen up to what Bill Bynum, Hope’s CEO, has to say on that, as well as his provocative views about the real mission of credit unions in today’s America, the CFPB, and a lot more.

Note: there is a bit of ambient noise in this recording. But it does not hinder listening or comprehension. A small annoyance at worst.

The CU2.0 podcast. About credit unions for tomorrow.

This is a conversation that will rock you.

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Does your credit union have a future?

There's the blunt question.  

Welcome to the CU2.0 Podcast with your host Robert McGarvey. Today's guest Jon Ogden, head of strategic content at digital firm MX which has recently released two provocative reports, The Ultimate Guide to the Future of Banking and the Ultimate Guide to Digital Transformation.

Read them, they are free.

But know they may keep you up at night.

That's because many, many institutions - thousands of credit union among them - just don't get it. They cling to an analog, physical world where consumers - most of them and more daily - crave better digital experiences.

The MX reports - filled with consumer research - prove this.  Today 86% of us say our primary contacts with our FI are mobile and online. Just 14% say it's via branch or ATM.

59% of us say we would take a loan from a tech company.

49% of us predict "far fewer branches."

This is a fast ride through lots of numbers but the bracing take away from the numbers is that now is the time to transform - or perish.

In this podcast Ogden talks about work MX has done for credit union giant BECU.  Hear our podcast with retired CEO Gary Oakland.

Know that some of the opinions in the reports come from banking futurist Chris Skinner.  Hear our podcast with Skinner.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]

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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When a credit union buys a community bank is that dancing with the devil?

Welcome to the CU2.0 podcast with your host Robert McGarvey. Today's guest Keith Leggett, now retired Chief Economist with the American Bankers Association who still actively writes his blog, Credit Union Watch.

The topic of the talk: bank - credit union mergers.

Some banking experts are up in arms about these mergers.  Not Leggett.  He says community banks that are up for sale generally are looking for the best valuation and credit unions, in some cases, are exactly that as they seek to add new business capabilities - especially in business lending - and a fast route to that capability is buying the right community bank and retaining key staff.

On that note. listen to the CU 2.0 podcast with retired SECU CEO Jim Blaine, whose ideas are referenced by Leggett. We also discuss Maine Harvest, a new charter, and Leggett points to research on credit union bank mergers via Filene, also the St. Louis Fed.

Numbers to remember. In the past two years there have been around 400 bank - bank mergers. There have been around 20 bank - credit union deals.

Meantime, Leggett tempers his positive perspective on bank - credit union deals by saying there needs to be a two way street, that is, the regulator needs to lighten up about credit unions selling out to banks.

Why do bankers so often loudly scream about bank mergers with credit unions? A lot has to do with association politics, says Leggett, who adds that there's always a stronger response when a wolf is said to be at the door.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]

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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They just don't talk well together.

That's the surprising conclusion in a report entitled "Surprising Disconnect Over Compliance and Secure Web Use at Financial Firms," research sponsored by IT security company Authentic8. (Download the report here.)

Inside many banks and credit unions IT, compliance, and legal just don't talk the same language and often do not see the same problems, according to this report.

Read the related CUInsight article about the report here. 

Today's guest, Scott Petry, CEO of Authentic8 who will tell is about this internal Tower of Babel.

Here's why it matters: "this disconnect creates the potential for sizable gaps in compliance and data protection approaches in these organizations."

Credit unions may have even tougher going because in many cases some of these tasks are outsourced and often the vendors simply do not talk together. Ever.

Often, said the report, compliance focuses on reducing risks, legal relies on security policies, and IT is more attuned to attack vectors and keeping users content.

And those three orientations may collide.

The report explores how to get the three competing tribes on the same page, thus improving the institution's digital security.

The report also looks at how to maximize web use while maintaining optimal security.  Increasingly a tool of choice is remote browser isolation and Petry tells why this solution is gaining favor inside many financial institutions.

The conversation starts off with an attention grabber: why the ordinary URL is IT's nightmare. And know that Authentic8's Silo web browser has built in protections that anticipate - and solve for - user errors, pages they should not have clicked on, and still worse. It's protection for the Age of the Web and it consumes the first half of the podcast.

From there, we turn back to the question of the three tribes - and how to get them cooperating for the security of the organization.

Be prepared to hear realities you haven't thought about - and the result may be heightened internal security.

Read the report. It’s short, it’s free, but it’s provocative: Get it here.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]

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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Welcome to Up in Smoke, Part 4 - credit unions and weed.

Buckle up. Dan Mayfield, public affairs director at LeveragePoint, a strategic communications firm in Albuquerque NM, will be our guide in this podcast to the cannabis business in New Mexico.  

Cash, public safety, and a $130 million dollar annual business take. That's legal marijuana in New Mexico -- and right now credit unions are scrambling to help serve this market.

LeveragePoint has a ringside seat and that's because it is wholly owned by the Credit Union Association of New Mexico.

You heard that right.

That also means it's playing a key role in setting up the CU Cannabiz show in Chicago in April and Mayfield offers more details on that in this podcast.

Up in Smoke Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here.

Part 3 is a podcast with Paul Stull, CEO of the Credit Union Association of New Mexico.

What's important here is that cannabis is a potentially huge market for credit unions. It has risks, sure.

But it has a grand upside.

Here all about all sides in this podcast.  It's a fast ride.

Listen here

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]

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