The CU2.0 Podcast

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What are your members thinking about you? Say you don't know and you are setting yourself up for failure. Say you do know and, no, you haven't asked them because you, well, just know and you are on the fast track to extinction.

If you want to know what your members think and need, ask them.

That's where LiveSurvey comes in.  A credit union owned CUSO - developed by MAPS Credit Union in Oregon - LiveSurvey's mission is providing realtime, instant feedback from members that lets credit unions better chart their next actions to better serve members.

When is the last time your credit union surveyed members? How many responded? Did you get anything useful?

LiveSurvey grew out of MAPS own needs.  The credit union faced the horns of a dilemma.  On one side were very pricey, consultant driven survey products. On the other side, there are inexpensive - even free - Internet tools.  Neither gave MAPS the solution it wanted and out of that grew LiveSurvey.

About 25 credit unions now use LiveSurvey which gives them the ability to query members as they wish and on whatever topic they choose.

Prices range from $500 to $1000 monthly.

Who better to help you take the next steps to grow your credit union than existing members - who when asked right will tell you what they like and what they don't. 

MAPS make it easy and inexpensive to know.

Every credit union needs to be doing this or similar.  It's a competitive world out there and this is crucial intel.  And it's yours to gather if you just ask for it.

LiveSurvey CEO David Deckelmann tells all abut it in this brisk podcast.

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 a credit union serve more than one employer group? You know what today's answer is of course. But to know the history you need to talk with Marc Schafer, CEO of Truliant, a Winston Salem credit union.

That's because Truliant was sued by a banker's group in the mid 1990s that claimed it was illegal for a credit union to serve more than one employer group.  And the bankers won in the Supreme Court!

So how is it now legal? Listen to Schaefer and his tale of how HR 1151 became law - that's the legislation that made multiple SEGs legal.

Along the way you will hear a great personal credit union success story. Schafer became CEO of the tiny FDIC credit union when he was 34 in 1986.  In 1995 he moved to Truliant which then was a $400 million credit union.

Truliant now is a $2.5 billion credit union.

That's a remarkable growth story and of course you want to hear it.

Why is Schafer telling his story now? He retires at year end.

His is a terrific story of how to make credit unions work better, for more people.

Related podcasts in this series include Bucky Sebastian (who tells his take on HR 1151), Gary Oakland, Jim Blaine, and Teresa Freeborn.

As for Blaine, the retired CEO of SECU in North Carolina, he too has a story of being sued over multiple SEGs.  In an email he wrote this: "few know that the "original" FOM law suit was filed against SECU in state court (SECU is state-chartered) in 1977 by the NC Bankers Association when SECU added small city/county local govts to our FOM. The bankers beat us in the NC Supreme Court (on a split decision with the Chief Justice writing an 'icy' dissent!) and we had to divest about 9,000 local govt employees who had joined. We did so - being the ornery, stubborn folks we were! - by forming a federal credit union (today's Local Government FCU @$2.5 billion) which immediately contracted for all services through SECU. LGFCU had a board and staff of 1, but immediately had a full array of services and about 50 branches at that time!  Needless to say our state bankers were 'not pleased' and sued in federal court (we forced it out of our state courts since LGFCU was federally chartered!). LGFCU/SECU won on appeal in the 3rd District (Richmond) and the bankers decided not to appeal to the US Supreme Court. When they later came gunning for Marc, the bankers made sure it got heard in the 4th District (DC) which is far more 'business friendly' - the 4th ruled in favor of the banks, which led to the adverse Supreme Court decision, the Campaign for Consumer Choice, and HR 1151."

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You have your eye on new ATMs for your credit union - but you are given pause by the price tags that can quickly jump above $50,000 apiece.

Here's a reality: most credit union ATMs that I see are old, creaky, lacking functions, sometimes with screens so weathered and scratched they are barely readable.

Then there are the ATMs that I see at nearby Chase's. Cardless access. Sleek. 

Enough to make you drool?

Enter Tellerex and a possible answer to your desires. An ATM lifecycle management company, Tellerex works with financial institutions both large and small.

There's magic in that formula.  A handful of big banks are dueling over who has the best ATM fleet and they are in constant upgrade campaigns. What happens to the 1500 and more ATMs they replace every year - typically after five to seven years of use?

When Tellerex is the player, what happens is that discarded ATM is given new life - often new software, sometimes even a new processor.  A new top of the line ATM might cost $50,000 to $75,000. A refurbished five year old ATM might cost half that.

You life that math?  Of course. And your members will like the upgraded user experience.

Listen in to a podcast that tells you all you wanted to know about ATMs but didn't know who to ask.

Giving answers here are Tellerex's chairman and co-founder James Kilkelly, CEO Christian Ranke, and chief operations officer Brian Lechlitner.

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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Buckle up for big, explosive ideas.  That's what Douglas Hartung - senior director, business development & alliances at Diebold Nixdorf - specializes in and in this podcast he discusses Libra, bringing financial services to the globe's underbanked and unbanked, and the exciting idea that just maybe all a person needs to send money anywhere on the planet is a smart phone.

How cool is that?

Know that just may be Libra's promise.

While some scoff at the prospects of Libra - the Facebook backed new-style currency - Hartung believes that the sheer magnitude of the Facebook family of properties user base makes this a financial play that demands attention.

He also likes the idea of in-app payments - so in Facebook, for instance, what if you can without friction send $10 to a friend in Bali. With just a click. Without leaving the Facebook app.

Is Libra just another Bitcoin variant? Hartung says nope.  He tells why in the podcast.

A bottomline here is: pay attention to Libra.  You may regret it if you don't.

Incidentally you will hear some taps interspersed throughout the podcast. That's Hartung animatedly tapping on a table to emphasize his point. Get into his spirit, let the taps animate you too.

This podcast is one of a group of four recorded on site at the Diebold Nixdorf DN Intersect conference in Las Vegas, September 2019.

Don't miss a related podcast with industry analyst Richard Crone, also on Libra. 

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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Richard Crone is a longtime payments geek and when it comes to Libra, he has a particular spin.  It boils down to this: forget the talk about crypto currency. Libra fundamentally is a pre-paid account and because it is a Facebook effort, it has reach into some 2.1 billion daily users of Facebook tools (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, etc.).

"It's a prepaid network with global reach - there are also 90 million businesses on Facebook properties," said Crone.

His blunt message: every credit union needs a Libra strategy and you need it now.

Understand this: Facebook may not be looking to profit off Libra per se. Its strategy seems instead to be to use Libra to drive traffic to Facebook sites and thereby increase advertising revenues.

Which may make Libra yet more attractive to financial institutions.

The conversation includes Heidi Liebenguth, managing partner at Crone Consulting, and it took place in a public space at Caesars Palace, where Crone and Liebenguth were speakers at DN Intersect, the Diebold Nixdorf meeting. There's minor ambient noise but audio quality of the podcast is good.

Crone finds it "bizarre" that not one FDIC insured institution joined in the launch of Libra.

He also is not deterred by the regulatory scrutiny Libra has won.  In fact he sees it as a competitive advantage because it may deter competitors from plunging in with their own similar products.

Listen to this podcast and you definitely will want to dig into Libra and reach the decisions that are right for your credit union. Inaction is not a strategy.

Don't miss a related podcast with Diebold Nixdorf executive Douglas Hartung, also on Libra.  

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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Take a guess. How many recurring payments does a typical consumer have set up, for how much money monthly?

Alain Glanzman, CEO of fintech WalletFi is focused on exactly that issue - and also on the huge potential it represents for credit unions

The answers are 10 to 15 recurring payments totaling $857 per month.

Surprised? Think Netflix, T-Mobile, the NY Times, Cox Cable, maybe an electric bill, and the list goes on.  We have moved from a society that paid via bill pay, or perhaps writing a check, to one where many of us have set up multiple vendors to in effect pay themselves monthly via our debit or credit cards.

Enter WalletFi. The company says of itself: "WalletFi was founded to solve a problem our co-founders personally felt: the pain that comes from a lost or reissued card. Focused on the customer experience first, WalletFi grew to provide technology that helps users manage their subscriptions and recurring charges, and bounce back from a lost, stolen, or reissued card. 

Financial institutions identified these pain points in their customer’s life cycles as well, and now rely on WalletFi to provide a subscription management platform that will increase interchange revenue, offer an unbeatable user experience, and win the battle for top-of-wallet."

WalletFi now is looking for credit unions to partner with.

In this podcast, Glanzman offers intriguing insights into how fintechs and credit unions can work together, how they have different definitions of a "quick deal," and - above all - he expresses confidence that many credit unions, with their focus on the member experience, are ideally positioned to champion bringing more control to consumers over their recurring payments.

On which note: do you know how many recurring payments you have set up? 

Don't be surprised if you stumble. That's where WalletFi comes in. It gives the member visibility into payments many of us have forgotten about.

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Circle the date, October 26. Las Vegas. That's when Susan Mitchell, a longtime credit union consultant, is convening another meeting of the Credit Union Underground, this time in parallel with Money 20/20, probably the meeting of the best and brightest in the disruptive quadrant of financial services.  

The point of each Underground is collision with disruptors. A lot - maybe most - credit union executives cling to their individual comfort zones. But get with reality. Maybe half of today's 5500 credit unions will go poof in the next decade.

Bye bye.

At the Undergrounds, attendees get exposed to disruptive thought - but they also see they aren't required to face the challenges alone, a lot of credit union people are in the same boat.

A Mitchell belief is that widespread cooperation helped build the credit union industry. And a renewed commitment to cooperation just may be its salvation.

Ask yourself this: what's your institution's purpose? Who did you help today? Whose life did you change?

Credit unions were created to help community members, to change lives. Are they still doing that?

And know that that is a path to survival. Purpose fuels existence.

This is a wide ranging podcast. Listen and you just may find your path to survival.

For Ramones, go 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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Randy Karnes just may be the poster boy for the cooperative entrepreneur.  In the process he may also have come upon the formula that will enable many hundreds - perhaps thousands - of small credit unions to thrive in the 21st century.

How can they? Aren't they technology deserts in an era of digital banking? Nope. Not with CU*Answers, the CUSO Karnes helms, at their side.  CU*Answers once was simply a core system provider but as the technology needs of credit unions have evolved, so has CU*Answers.  It now offers online banking, mobile banking, and more; you want to hear why in this podcast.

178 credit unions own CU*Answers and they range in size from microscopic to over $1 billion in assets.  The typical CU*Answers credit union is $80 to $100 million in assets and, say many pundits, that's an endangered species.

 Karnes dissents. "I don't think they will be gone."

He adds, "Credit unions will survive to the extent they stay creative and disruptive."

Remember that. The point of a credit union is not to be staid and conservative. It's to rock the boat.  That's why they were founded, to be different.

The ones that prosper today will do likewise

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 a credit union double in size in five years? You bet, says Kirk Kordeleski, a senior consultant with Best Innovation Group and before that, CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union on Long Island where he did exactly that.

Kordeleski points to Navy and also BECU as examples of other credit unions that have also experienced exponential growth.

How? That is why you want to listen to this podcast. He gives the recipe, in some detail, here.  Boiled down it's think competitively and believe - really believe - you can use inherent credit union advantages such as tax exemption to take a billion or more in dollars of business away from money center banks who very probably won't even notice it is gone.

There's more in this podcast. Kordeleski also tells why this is a time of immense, perhaps unprecedented opportunity for credit unions. Use digital and use data to allow your institution to expand in ways that a generation ago would have been unimaginable. 

The bad news: a decade from now the number of credit unions may be about half what it is today. Expect 2000 credit unions to vanish in the next decade.  You don't want to be among them?  There are plenty of survival tips in this podcast.

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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Call this the credit union oral history sequence - Blaine, Bucky Sebastian, now Gary Oakland who took over BECU, with around $700 million in assets, in the mid 1980s and when he left in 2012 it had become a $10 billion+ credit union, one of the nation's very biggest.

How did Oakland do it? In this podcast you will hear his recipe for credit union success which, put simply, is make the member the center of this universe.  When the member is served, the credit union will thrive.

"It's all about the member," said Oakland.

Oakland sees a bright credit union future - but he wonders about the arrival of bank trained executives and how that background will impact credit unions.

A break that came BECU's way was when the big bank in Washington State, Seafirst nearly went belly up in the 1980s - and was saved from that only when Bank of America took it over.  That gave BECU smoother sailing in its quest to be dominant in its state.

Oakland says he is proud that he left BECU with a small credit union attitude in a big credit union body.

It's an inspiring credit union tale.

Listen up 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