The CU2.0 Podcast

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A state regulator in Illinois. General counsel at NCUA. A co-founder of Callahan Associates. Longtime CEO at GTE Financial.  Head of the National Credit Union Foundation. Guess who.

Meet Wendell Sebastian, call him Bucky.

His has been an extraordinary career and you will like him. For two reasons. He is a vocal credit union cheerleader. And he deeply believes that credit unions - because they serve members, not shareholders - will triumph, that credit unions are absolutely the best financial institution for just about all of us.

Bucky doesn't shy away from a fight.  Suggest to him that it is high tech credit unions that will prevail and he is quick to argue that in point of fact it is high touch institutions that have been winning.  Of course they feature needed tech but what puts a credit union in the winner's circle is high touch. He cites Navy Federal as a classic for instance and in this podcast reviews the numbers to make his case.

He is a walking history book too.  Why did credit unions shrink in number from 23,000 40 years ago to maybe 5500 today? Because it was in the plan, says Bucky, and in large part a result of policies put into place when he worked at NCUA in the early 1980s.

Isn't a shrinking number of institutions a sign credit unions are dying? "Never focus on the institutions, it's about the members," says Bucky who points to the extraordinary growth in member numbers.

In this podcast you'll hear what killed off savings and loans and why credit unions escaped their fate, why community banks may be next to expire (and what may keep them alive), and the big advantage credit union CEOs have over their peers at banks.

What advantage? That they can manage the institution with a eye on the horizon, not on the present quarter, says Bucky.  Managing to the quarter, he insists, is a recipe for disaster.

You want a feel good podcast? You want this one - and you definitely will learn a lot of history in the process.  Related podcasts include the Jim Blaine Marathon and Cliff Rosenthal on CDFIs.

Listen here to the Bucky 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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Cannabis banking. Data breaches.  Taxation of credit unions. The disappearance of small credit unions.  The rise of $10 billion+ credit union behemoths. Welcome to the world of Caroline Willard, CEO of the Cornerstone League and, before that, she spent a decade at Co-Op in senior marketing slots.

What do credit unions need to do to survive? What do leagues need to do? Willard offers candid and also optimistic thoughts about these life and death questions.

She also offers insights into what leagues can do to help small credit unions survive in an age of ever more complex and expensive compliance requirements.

And she challenges credit unions to be a bit more like Rocket Mortgage - and if you want to continue to write home loans you will pay heed.

Pay heed too to her thoughts on how taxation of credit unions just might be an existential threat to the industry.

Related podcasts in this series include the two-pack on cannabis banking, Teresa Freeborn on CUNA's $100 million credit union awareness campaign, and Joe Bergeron of the Vermont League and Pat Conway of the Pennsylvania - NJ league

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Elder fraud is big business. The FBI calculates last year's losses at over $700 million and involving two million seniors.

That's a lot of pain.

The scams are predictable. “Your grandson has been arrested. He’s in jail in Memphis.  You need to bail him out. It’s dangerous. Send $5000 in gift cards.”

There are variations. But the usual drill is that a relative has fallen into trouble and the senior can be the hero.

Horrible.

But now credit unions are entering this scene.

Here to tell us what credit unions are doing is Walt Laskos, senior vice president, strategic communications at the Cooperative Credit Union Association, a multi state league covering Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware.

Leagues - usually - spend the bulk of their time lobbying.

But CCUA is putting a lot of energy into fighting elder fraud and helping credit unions to do likewise.

It’s also very, very good PR for credit unions, says Laskos.  That’s not why CCUA does it but the side benefit is real.

Listen up as he talks about what CCUA is doing, with whom, and what the community reaction has been.

Hint: think very very positive

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

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Put phishing emails in front of credit union employees and how many will fall for them and cough up sensitive info? 20 to 60% will get conned.

And that can be costly to a credit union, both in terms of money and reputation.

Enter BrightWise, a Des Moines Iowa cyber training company created by Sherri Davidoff, CEO of LMG Security, and the Iowa Credit Union League’s holding company Affiliates Management Company (AMC).

After training, said Davidoff, the number of employees who fall for the phishing con tumbles below 10%.

What BrightWise will focus on, said Davidoff, are fun, short videos - think maybe five minutes - than an employee can absorb at his/her leisure.

Smarter employees are critical because how hackers work has changed, said Davidoff. “It’s no longer 13-year-olds in their moms’ basements that are hacking us; it’s organized crime groups all over the world,” Davidoff shared with NBC’s Today Show.

“People tend to think cybersecurity happens in the IT department,” added Davidoff. “Front-line staff are under constant assault from crooks and their automated robots, look-alike communications and other crafty tricks. We have to arm employees with knowledge, but also give them the tactics they need to sidestep cyber sneak attacks.”

Want more details on the Paul Allen scam? Read this.

Listen up to this podcast for a fast overview of the cyber threats credit unions face - and what they can, indeed must, do to protect themselves and their membe

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 with your host Robert McGarvey. In every episode we probe the massive digital transformation that now is remaking the nation’s credit unions and today’s guest is Vasilios Roussos, executive director of the DCU Fintech Innovation Center in Boston.

The what?  You're right: this is a major departure for a credit union and in this podcast you'll find out why DCU launched a fintech incubator, how this is very cool for the industry and what other credit unions can do to achieve similar outcomes.

How can credit unions level the technology playing field with mega banks and giant fintechs? DCU may well be showing the way in Boston.

One more thing: tune into the last bit of this podcast to learn about special sponsorship opportunities.  You’ll want to hear about this.

Find out more about CU2.0 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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At 30 he took over as CEO of State Employees' Credit Union in North Carolina.  That was 1979.  Come 2016 and he retired. SECU had grown to $33 billion - and it had 256 branches and 5800 employees.

That's the Jim Blaine story and here he sits for a marathon interview, the longest in this podcast's history.

It's worth the hour. Make time.

Blaine starts out by questioning the wave of mergers that is now rocking the world of credit unions. Why not just liquidate the institution and give every member $1000?

Keep listening and you realize he's not exactly for doing that. In fact he denounces the loss of a few hundred credit union charters yearly. 

What he is actually doing is highlighting a reality that, typically, those mergers accomplish just about nothing. The resulting institution, a bit bigger, is in fact no more competitive.

Blaine also worries about the loss of local institutions, where nowadays in many credit unions all decisions - including the trivial - get made at corporate HQ.

Is there in fact a future for credit unions?

Maybe. Maybe not.  Blaine highlights a strategy for keeping credit unions relevant. But he frets that many may not heed the message.

Are you listening?

Related podcasts mention in this interview include Bill Bynum, Maine Harvest. Teresa Freeborn, and Cliff Rosenthal. 

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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Consumers don't want a digital bank. They want digital banking. That's a building block belief of futurist-blogger Chris Skinner who has become a regular on the conference speaking circuit.

Even though what he has to say will upset many financial services executives.

That's because he thinks many are going about becoming a digital banking prover all wrong.

It's not about offering a mobile banking app.  It's about a reconfiguration of the whole service delivery system.

That system was created to distribute paper (think checks).

What's needed today is a system to distribute data (bits and bytes).

Skinner relates that one FI that gets it often asks itself before embarking on a project, what would Jeff do?

Jeff who?

Bezos, said Skinner.

And that's a step closer to really thinking digitally.

Here's the money question: Can credit unions keep up with the big money center banks when it comes to the race to digitalization?

Skinner has good news here. His answer is yes. His answer also is that the comparatively small size of credit unions is a plus. A lean institution is that much easier to put on a different course.

In this podcast Skinner tells how. He also tells a lot about what China has done to create a digital country - and it's inspiring stuff.

Listen up.

Related podcasts include Ron Shevlin, Brett King and Thomas Frey - for more doses of futurist thought.

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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Will your credit union be in business in 2029?

The question is not academic and it's exactly the kind of question futurist Thomas Frey chews on.

We first heard him at Co-Op's Think '18 (video here) and the conversation picks up where that presentation left off: what's the future of the car business?

And know that the answer directly impacts credit unions.

Know too that Frey in this conversation explores the future shape of banking -  by 2025, he says, the biggest banks will be tech companies.

He also delves into the vanishing branch and what this means for financial institutions. There now are 90,000 branches. But they are disappearing at a rate of 1000 per year.  And then what?

The emergence of "banking deserts" - and the opportunities that may create for financial institutions - is another Frey topic.

So is the emergence of autonomous cars and what that may mean for credit unions.

One fact emerges from this conversation: the banking industry tomorrow will look very, very different from today's.

Will you still be in the picture?


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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You want to know about community development financial institutions? Cliff Rosenthal is the man you want to talk to.  He literally wrote the book on CDFIs and also the longstanding credit union initiative to serve the unbanked: Democratizing Finance: Origins of the Community Development Financial Institutions Movement.

Have CDFIs lived up to their potential?

Have credit unions changed the shape of financial services in America?

Rosenthal has opinions and he shares them in this podcast.

Along the way he talks about his stint at the CFPB - and the ingrained credit union executive distrust of that institution. Which may not be entirely warranted.

Rosenthal pulls no punches. He said, "It dismays me that 100 years after the birth of credit unions we still have a significant problem of the underbanked and unbanked." And, note, about 25% of households falls into the category.

 Rosenthal also said that in 1990 there were around 13,500 banks and thrifts and a like number of credit unions.  There now are about 5500 of each.  "The number of credit unions falls by 200 to 300 each year.  Ten years from now there will be 3000, 3500 credit unions."

That math is flawless. And it has to scare you.

In this podcast, you'll hear a discussion of the successes of a Mississippi credit union executive Bill Bynum.  He told his own story in this podcast.

You'll also hear about Jim Blaine, the charismatic, longtime CEO of State Employees' Credit Union in North Carolina, one of the country's biggest.

And you'll also hear Rosental insist that many credit unions that focus on serving the underserved do better financially than those that focus on fighting with banks for more affluent consumers.

If you enjoy this podcast, listen in to the podcast with Cathie Mahon, CEO of Inclusive, a trade group for institutions that focus on community development.

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 

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You want more Millennial members. You need them. Born between 1981 and 1996, Millennials are a prime age cohort for financial services - they are getting mortgages, buying cars, taking vacations. And yet many of them know squat about credit unions and do not belong to them even though in many respects credit unions line up perfectly with what Millennials want: free checking, non profit status, they are local businesses, and they put people and community first, not shareholders.

So why don't more Millennials belong to credit unions? That's why we brought together three to talk about credit unions, what their friends think about credit unions, and why they use them (or don't).

This podcast is a companion to the Gen Z podcast which explored the same issues with a younger cohort.

It's also a companion podcast to the podcast with Teresa Freeborn on the CUNA awareness campaign.

A takeaway from this talk is that credit unions have a lot of work to do. A lot. They are doing a wretched job of communicating their differences and why they are the better choice over a bank.

But the messages are there, they are strong, and credit unions can win. If they do the hard work.

It's a tough fight. But a winnable fight.

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