The CU2.0 Podcast

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Biophilic.

That's your word for today and it is complements of Jesse Boyer, COO of the $600 million NIH Federal Credit Union in Maryland which is moving at a high speed to open a new branch in Silver Spring that is biophilic in design - meaning it puts you in touch with nature and, in this case, there's a living moss wall.

Of course you want to hear more about this. 

What this podcast is about is a search for a new, more welcoming branch format and, at the new NIH FCU location, ITMs - interactive teller machines - replace ATMs and oldfashioned tellers.

The idea is to produce a comfortable setting that is both warm and techie.

Some balancing act but the NIH FCU folks think they have the roadmap and in this podcast you will hear about it.

You will also hear candid musing about what a $600 million credit union has to do to insure longterm survival.  Think acquisitions.

This podcast revolves around extremely candid and frank assessments of what needs to be done - in terms of branch reinvention and credit union survival.

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

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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Kirk Drake literally wrote the book on the digital transformation of credit unions and here he sits down for a brisk, rich 15 minute podcast about what digital transformation really means and what he has learned about the process in more than a year of working with credit unions on transformation.

Spoiler alert: it ain't easy.

Second spoiler: but if you try real hard you just may get what you need.

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

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Here's a terrifying number: Total outstanding student loan debt is $1.5 trillion. With a t. Trillion.

The average student leaves college owing north of $28,000.

Talk about dream crushing.

Talking about downscaling.

Enter ChangEd. It’s an app that says it can help graduates pay off debts faster by harnessing their pocket change. Automatically. Pretty much painlessly.

Tropical Financial, the Florida credit union, is in a pilot program to show the power of pocket change.

That’s what Tropical Financial vice president Amy McGraw tells us about in this  podcast.

Student loans already are impacting the ability of many credit unions to make loans to debt burdened would be borrowers. That can put home purchases on hold. Ditto cars. 

So finding a way out is critical.

ChangEd just may be the path.

At Tropical Financial, the hope is that by helping student loan holders pay off their debts faster, and with little pain, the credit union will gain visibility with Millennials in particular.

But, mainly, it's also just about walking the credit union talk which means helping members live better financial lives.

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

Listen in to this uplifting podcast here.  

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Do you want to talk about money - or would you prefer to talk about sex?

Many of us today would choose the sex conversation, mainly because we know we don't know much about personal finance and we also know we don't anybody to ask for advice.

Enter Tropical Financial in Florida which has introduced a new website Get Beyond Money where the purpose is to provide people (target audience: older millennials) with the financial education they need and want so that they can make smarter, shrewder financial decisions.

The website has plenty of blogs, quizzes, and even offers a free appointment with a financial counselor.

This podcast offers an insider's view of how this campaign was created - and know it was three years in the making. There were stumbles along the way but that enriches this story.

Also know that Tropical Financial is willing to share its content with non competitive credit unions. Don't be shy about asking.

Today's guest is Amy McGraw, the first repeat podcast guest. Last year she starred in episode 10 on the student loan crisis and what Tropical Financial is doing to help.

Now she's leading the charge in bringing meaningful financial education to older millennials who - in many cases - really don't know who to ask for advice.  Tropical Financial wants to step into that role.

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

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 the CU2.0 Podcast, regular interviews with credit union leaders, thinkers, movers, shakers and more.

This is not about the status quo.

It's about tomorrow. The tomorrow you can join in shaping, or the tomorrow that will shape you.

Which do you please?

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Credit unions are buying so many banks the Wall Street Journal refers to this as a "spree."

Just in the first eight months of 2018 there were 21 transactions, compared to 12 in the prior five years, by the WSJ count.

What is going on here?

We put that question to John Weinkowitz, Head of Product Strategy, Community

Markets, Finastra, and himself an m and a expert.

Is this doing business with the devil?

Should this put into jeopardy the credit union tax exemption - as many bankers are insisting?

What drives the transactions? The need to grow, said Weinkowitz. FIs below a certain size find it more difficult to compete. So some put themselves up for sale.  And others go hunting for acquisition partners.

The allure for credit union execs is an immediate increase in members, deposits, and also - in many cases - branches.

But are they factoring in predictable attrition?

Do they have a strategy for employee retention - which may be critical to making an acquisition work?

Before buying a community bank listen to this podcast. You don't want to ignore that advice.

The podcast is here.

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

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 small credit unions survive?

Carla Bienz is CEO of Partners 1st Credit Union in Fort Wayne IN - an institution where she has worked since she graduated from college and where she now is CEO.  And she has keen insights into the plight of smaller credit unions and what they need to do to survive and prosper.

Partners 1st, by the way, now is approaching $400 million in assets after multiple mergers. It also has 24 branches in seven states.

One reality Bienz accepts: to stay relevant Partners 1st has to continue to grow.

Another reality: it needs a lot of help from fintechs but, says Bienz, the right fintechs level the playing field for smaller credit unions.

Along the way Bienz talks about why she is exploring CDFI status and she ponders the existential question: how can credit unions with under $100 million in assets survive.

She is exceptionally candid. Soft spoken but thoughtful.  Listen and learn.

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

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 would it be like to go from being Head, Digital Customer Experience at Lloyds Bank in the United Kingdom - a trillion dollar institution - to being the VP for digital innovation at Colorado-based Canvas Credit Union, with assets around $2.5 billion?

Ask Lucy Donaldson, this week's guest at the CU 2.0 Podcast.

She made exactly that journey and she candidly talks about what a money center bank can do that a credit union usually can't - but she also talks about the huge advantages a credit union has, from much better agility to strong, genuine community ties.  

She's seen both sides and she says what she likes about credit unions.

A key point Donaldson makes in this podcast is that it's time to stop talking about a credit union's digital transformation - and time to accept that has become its business transformation. A credit union is its bits and bytes and knowing that makes the job of plotting institutional success that much easier.

Here's a related podcast with Tanan Miles of ENT, Colorado's biggest credit union.

This is one of a half dozen podcasts recorded at Finastra Community Markets in Chicago, October 2019.

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

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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There was a time when community financial institutions owned the home mortgage market. No more.  Fintechs dominate and mega banks aren't far behind. Most credit unions are left to squabble over crumbs.

But just maybe there's hope. At Finastra, Steve Hoke, Vice President, Product Management, Consumer and SME Lending, says the company's Fusion Motgagebot Data Insights puts the power of data analytics in the hands of a community financial institution and the upshot is just maybe it can compete - successfully - against the fintechs and mega banks when it has data at its command.

What percentage of your mortgages actually close? How does that compare with competitors? Don't guess. Know. That's the promise of this data.

Understand, the data is anonymized.  You cannot ask it to tell you how you fare against a specific competitor. But if you want to see how you do against others, it has the answer.

This is powerful stuff.  Hoke said Finastra is adding capabilities and hopes to extend it to more types of lending (auto loans for instance).

"We are giving community institutions insight into data that before they were flying blind about," said Hoke.

This is one of a half dozen podcasts recorded at Finastra Community Markets in Chicago, October 2019.

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

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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It has taken some years but finally Maine Harvest may be in the final lap before gaining an official credit union charter.  That's because it's met its fundraising goal, $2.4 million, with last monies ponied up by the Maine Credit Union League and what's remarkable is that just about the whole credit union movement in the state has supported formation of this novel credit union.

So, too, do the states two U.S. Senators and two House members.

Maybe 30 credit unions have been chartered by NCUA in the past decade. So this is a big deal.

We first covered the Maine Harvest story in 2015.

We picked it up again in 2017.

And in 2019 we may be covering the official opening.

What's special about Maine Harvest is that it intends to follow a  specific, narrow business plan where it makes loans to small farmers - for land purchase, equipment purchase, and similar.

No checking. In fact no cash in the till.

No other institutions crave that loan business. But small farming is seen as very important to Maine's future.

Also essential to the business plan is that essentially all the back office will be provided by Synergent, a subsidiary of the Maine League.

That lets the start up focus on finding borrowers and making sound loans.

Why do many credit unions fail? They don't serve a clear need.

This one knows its need and has a plan for filling it.

Other states would do well to look into similar efforts.

Hear the podcast with Budde about the history, present and future of Maine Harvest here.

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

UPDATE: MAINE HARVEST GO ITS CHARTER. BRAVO