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Call this show all you never wanted to know about the fraudemic that credit unions today are fighting - but you have to know about it because knowledge is a key to beating the armies ff criminals who are besieging FIs across America.
Who are they? What weapons do they have? On the show is Rene Perez, a financial crime expert who works with Jack Henry, who tells us what the fraudsters are doing.
But he also is very upbeat that the tide is turning against the criminals as more FIs share more information about fraud and Perez is optimistic that there will be more sharing and more wins for credit unions in their daily battles with cyber criminals.
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Can credit unions help eradicate racism in America?
Renee Sattiewhite says so in this 2020 podcast that is our greatest hit #20.
But ask her if there is racism in US financial institutions and the answer is yes.
Renee Sattiewhite is CEO of the African American Credit Union Coalition and in this show she expresses optimism that the US can rid itself of its racist demons.
The time for change is here, she believes.
Sattiewhite is keenly interested in job opportunities in credit unions for people of color and she has numbers: there were in 2020 15 African American CEOs of credit unions, including 6 at billion dollar institutions.
Could there be more? "I look at this and see a glass half full," said Sattiewhite, who added that credit union can do more, better in hiring minority professionals, promoting them, and - this is key - recruiting minority board members.
Sattiewhite also offers a shout out to Jim Blaine, a past podcast guest for his support of AACUC.
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Literally a couple days before I recorded this podcast with Siva Narendra, CEO and founder of Tyfone and now Payfinia, a story moved over the wire with this headline: Payfinia Launches CUSO with Star One Credit Union.
The story added that Star One - a Silicon Valley behemoth - had invested $4.5 million in the CUSO. That money, by the way, moved in a series of $500,000 instant payments into Payfinia’s coffers.
At its end Payfinia has built in layers of controls to guard against fraud but to allow real time transfers.
That Star One commitment tells you Payfinia is for real, and Narendra is on the show to tell about Payfinia, which he says is the opportunity for community financial institutions - that means credit unions too - to own an instant payments system that has shown its losses to fraud are dramatically lower than with instant ACH and at the same time overhead costs are dramatically lower.
Instant payments are real and increasing numbers of consumers and businesses - perhaps small businesses especially - want instant payments. The time is now.
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AI - it’s the word on every lip in credit union land as most institutions scramble to find ways to usefully harness AI.
And then there is Glia, the company known for contact center tools that are at work in many credit unions and now Glia has debuted a suite of AI powered contact management tools that are ready to use now.
If you’ve been wondering when AI would get real for credit unions, know it already is real at many Glia customers.
Glia unveiled its AI collection at its Interact 2024 user conference in October and on the show today is Jake Tyler, founder of Finn AI which Glia bought a few years ago and Tyler joined Glia in that transaction.
Glia’s approach to AI is shaped by the company’s focus on contact centers in FIs. In the show Tyler explains how that focus impacts Glia’s AI development and in that vein he stressed that Glia is committed to delivering “responsible AI.”
Listen up.
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Latino Community Credit Union was founded in 2000 in Durham NC when the community was rocked by a wave of robberies - even murders - of Latino workers who were paid in cash and were believed to walk around with their pockets stuffed with cash because they were unbanked.Enter John Herrera - whom you know from CU 2.0 Podcast 142 - and a handful more helpers and visionaries who founded the credit union which at the time of this recording four years had about $600 million in assets.
Among the early volunteers was Luis Pastor who was in the US from his native Spain because his wife was pursuing graduate school and he had time on his hands. But soon he was offered the job of CEO and he took the offer.
Pastor tells of borrowers who have been deported who are still paying their loans - that seems unthinkable but it is a reality in Durham because this is a credit union that engages in helping people who have been ignored by traditional financial institutions. Extend a helping hand to them and these are people who remember that and value the relationship.Pastor has a word of advice: "If credit unions are trying to steal members from Bank of America we are going to lose this battle."
Focus instead on the people who really need the services you offer and aren't getting them elsewhere,
Update: Pastor now is retired.Listen up.
Along the way, many mentions are made of Jim Blaine, the retired CEO of State Employees' Credit Union of North Carolina. Hear the Blaine podcast here. Read more of Blaine's thinking in this CUInsight blog.
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Open banking - two words that just may change your life and this change is coming at you, ready or not.
In late October the CFPB finalized a rule that made open banking a must have for the nation’s biggest financial institutions by April 1 2026 - and by April 1 2030 the bigger credit unions will have to comply too.
Don’t ask me to explain the choice of April 1. It’s a rather infelicitous choice but open banking is nonetheless a good thing, for FIs and their customers/members.
Here’s what CFPB has to say about it: “Too many Americans are stuck in financial products with lousy rates and service,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “Today’s action will give people more power to get better rates and service on bank accounts, credit cards, and more.”
The Bureau goes on: “Today’s rule ensures consumers will be able to access and share data associated with bank accounts, credit cards, mobile wallets, payment apps, and other financial products. It aims to address market concentration that limits consumer choice over financial products and services. Consumers will be able to access, or authorize a third party to access, data such as transaction information, account balance information, information needed to initiate payments, upcoming bill information, and basic account verification information. Financial providers must make this information available without charging fees.”
Right now, radio silence about open banking prevails in credit union land - AI has sucked up almost all of the industry’s tech energy - but that will change as calendar pages flip us closer to the deadline for compliance.
Yes, it’s true that the vast majority of credit unions will never have to comply. FIs with assets under $850 million are exempt.
But choosing to ignore open banking may be signing an institution’s death certificate as members and prospective members grasp how open banking is in their best interest.
But here’s the deal: on the show today is Lisa Arthur who tells why embracing open banking is in the best interests of just about every credit union. She also tells how open banking already is well established in many countries - the US is a laggard - and what’s involved in climbing aboard this train.
Listen up.
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The United States is awash in medical debt. How much is there? Hard to say but Kaiser Family Foundation has an estimate of $220 billion and, yes, that’s billion with a b.
Enter CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which believes there is a lot of double billing, inflated charges and downright illegal medical debt collection tactics.
CFPB is looking at banning reporting of medical debt to credit bureaus which the agency says unjustly lowers the credit scores of some 15 million Americans.
Which is why we brought Jeff Grobaski back on the show. CEO of Fort Collins CO based Epic River, a lending as a service provider that helps medical practitioners and hospitals place their unpaid debts at credit unions which pay no fees for the paper and, even better, the credit union assumes little risk.
Nada.
Grobaski was on the show a year ago but the question now is how do the CFPB proposals impact what Epic River is doing?
The other question is why are hospitals and doctors happily turning that paper over to Epic River. Grobaski explains in the show. It really is a win-win-win, for the patient with debts, for the medical provider with bad paper on his books, and for the credit union that can turn that loan into performing paper and in the process acquire a new member.
This sounds too good to be true? Listen to Grobaski - he gives the nuts and bolts in the show.
Grobaski, incidentally, is a finalist in this year’s credit union luminaries sweepstakes. As the pub said, “Under Grobaski's leadership, Epic River has been able to connect credit unions with local health care providers to improve patients' ability to pay through low- or no-interest loans. Epic River's program accelerates patient payment, minimizes collection expenses and enhances cash flow for participating health care providers.”
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What magic pill can help keep hundreds, indeed thousands of credit unions from vanishing over the next decade?
Vim Anand, CEO of Member Support Services, says his CUSO can create operational efficiency and cost savings through economies of scale and standardization. The focus is on backoffice technologies and, says Anand, MSS’s tools deliver 20+ % cost savings.
But don’t take his word for all of this. Also on the show is John Bissell, CEO of $1.6 billion Greylock Federal Credit Union in Pittsfield MA. Bissell is a new MSS member-owner and he explains that the credit union took this step because he sees this as a way to stay independent and local and both of those are crucial to Bissell who believes they are a big part of the credit union special sauce.
Greylock, by the way, is the biggest credit union in MSS - the two other member owners are >$400 million apiece - and MSS is actively seeking new member owners because Anand’s goal is $8 to $10 billion in total assets.
And the payoff, says Anand, will be helping more credit unions stay independent.
As for why Bissell is set on keeping Greylock independent understand that he grew up in a Greylock family. His dad logged 30 years at GE which was the SEG that powered the birth of the credit union.
Listen to the show to hear Bissell’s story of how an Amherst College grad with an English degree migrated to Seattle but after 10 years he felt the call to return to western Mass, as locals call the region.
Do you want more credit unions to stay independent? Listen up.
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What’s the credit union mission?
Really?
At Inclusiv CEO Cathie Mahon believes that mission is serving the underserved.
That won her a place as a very early guest on the podcast.
Indeed hers was episode 15.
She’s still working on making that mission reality at Inclusiv.
And this still is a show that explores topics that really matter.
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Bet you don’t know what the word “hapax” means.
Listen to this podcast with Kevin Green, COO of Hapax, an Ai based tool that is built around the files and date inside your credit union. As Hapax explains, “Our Enterprise Model learns your institution's unique practices, policies, and challenges to facilitate knowledge-sharing among your team. It provides a repository of specific data that team members can reference, spurring professional growth, streamlining training, and delivering results tailored to your institution so you can successfully navigate the industry’s rapidly changing landscape.”
Best of all, Hapax essentially pays for itself through reduced employee time spent sifting through credit union policies and procedures.
The big name AI tools - think Chat GPT - are broad gauge while Hapax is very precisely focused and - critically - it’s built around the credit union’s own data.
Importantly, too, each Hapax deployment is in effect a private data lake. Data is not shared with other institutions.
Sound good?
It will sound even better when you listen to the end of the show and find out who the CEO/founder is.
Listen up.
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Just about every credit union wants - indeed needs - new members and that’s exactly what Union Credit focuses on by providing embedded finance tools to deliver a steady stream of new members to participating credit unions.
And get this: credit unions sign month to month deals with Union Credit. So it has to perform to keep credit unions. And a credit union can tell Union Credit how many new, approved and funded loans it wants to get this month.
On the show today is CRO and co-founder Barry Kirby and you know him because he was SVP at CuneNexus which in 2020 was bought by CUNA Mutual. The basic CuneXus idea was to provide tools that let a credit union show members loans and credit cards they already were pre-approved for.
Union Credit, which has TruStage, formerly CUNA Mutual, as a key investor is taking the kernel of that idea and helping credit unions extend pre approved loans to current non members who - and this is key - can easily be memberized. How does Union Credit work that magic? Kirby gives the details in this show.
How many credit unions have in effect created an obstacle course for prospective new members to complete before they are accepted as a member and that also means before they are offered a loan? And how many of those prospects drop out before they complete the obstacle course?
Union Credit offers a better, easier path, both for the prospective member and the credit union.
Listen up.
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The title I put on the podcast with Pete Crear was “A distinguished credit union life.”
Indeed it is. He was the first to win the lifetime achievement award from the African American Credit Union Coalition - and when they gave him the award in 2003 they decided to name it after him.
It’s an honor to have had him on the show and so it also is to proclaim this our Great Hits #17
This is episode 136 from February 2021
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The bad news is that after spending maybe a few hundred dollars to acquire a new member there’s a 50-50 chance that within a year that member will go dormant, assuming he/she actually ever showed any activity in the credit union at all.
That warning comes from Har Rai Khalsa, CEO of Miami based Swaystack and, earlier in his career, he co-founded MK Decision, a digital account opening platform acquired in 2021 by Alkami.
What happened along Khalsa’s journey is that he realized that good as digital account opening is - indeed it’s a must for a 21st century credit union - there also needs to be a systematic digital cultivation of that new member where the aim is to get him/her to fund their new account, set up bill pay, and in other ways integrate the account into their lives.
All that latter is what Swaystack has been created to accomplish and it has gamified the process, taking several leads from Chime which, says Khalsa, is simply extremely good at prompting a new account holder to put that account to use.
The key message here: opening an account is the beginning of the relationship not its culmination.
Listen up.
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On one side is an army of highly skilled criminals, all now equipped with the latest AI tools. On the other side are credit unions and other financial institutions and, face reality, credit unions have to up their game, now, to stay competitive in an AI war.
On the show is Ravi Sandepudi, CEO of Effectiv, a San Francisco based fraud prevention company with deep skills in AI. Ravi for instance worked at Google when much of the pioneering work in AI was getting done in those labs.
Here is how sophisticated - and patient - today’s fraudsters are. They will open an account built around a synthetic identity - the person never existed - and often they will seek to do the account opening at a credit union because many credit unions have more flexible ID requirements than do banks.
The kicker is that account will be perfectly legal and normal for a couple years - until it’s time to awaken it.
Ravi also talks about the need for continuous monitoring of an account. Authentication is no longer a one and done proposition.
These are exciting times for AI fraud detection and prevention and this show gives you a front row seat at the arena.
Listen up.
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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’s involved in implementing a digital member onboarding solution?
Probably that's a question you’ve pondered because digital onboarding is a new must have in credit union land.
But how do you get there?
On the show today is Todd Gunderson, CEO of Credit Union 1, a $1.75 billion Illinois-based institution. Gunderson walks us through the steps the institution took in implementing digital onboarding, the potholes along the way and the workarounds. The payoff has been more and better onboarding of new members who increasingly demand a digital process that is easy to use. Gunderson has delivered on that.
Also on the show is Philip Paul, CEO of Cotribute, the California based fintech that worked with Gunderson and CU1 to implement digital onboarding. Cotribute says of itself that it’s “the preferred digital customer acquisition solution for fast onboarding, increased conversions, and expanding wallet share.”
Listen to the show - and hear Gunderson’s high praise - and you’ll believe that claim.
Incidentally, because of his relentless candor, Gunderson now ranks as the most frank credit union CEO that’s been on the show. When he goes through the implementation process it's a warts and all story. He also tosses out candid observations about common CU failings.
Listen up.
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Ex nihil nihil fit. Out of nothing nothing comes.
That's a building block of Western thought - and then there is Prizeout, an innovative ad tech firm that maybe proves that nihil proposition is wrong.
You've heard Prizeout before. Perhaps 18 months ago, CEO David Metz was on the show with Darlene Johnson of Suncoast Credit Union.
Metz is back, this time with TJ Wyman, chief digital officer at Coastal Credit Union. Wyman is here to tell why his credit union just climbed aboard and Metz is here to tell about Prizeout's explosive growth and also to detail how the offering has morphed into a cashback tool
Metz and Wyman highlight the program’s unique value proposition of providing rewards to debit card users, who often do not have access to traditional credit card rewards programs. They also emphasize the program’s potential to help credit unions better compete with larger banks by offering an attractive cash benefit to their members.
Listen up.
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Have you heard about Deep Dive? It's Google's foray into AI driven podcasting and. as an experiment, we fed this podcast into it. What Deep Dive does is create its own podcast - the voices are machines - and here's a link to a 9 minute AI discussion of this show. -
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This show was recorded on October 1.
The first guest you hear is Greg Mitchell, CEO of First Tech Federal Credit Union, and you know what had happened on September 30.
Just the day before this show First Tech and DCU had announced a merger of giants.
And yet here was Mitchell on a podcast with Splash Financial CEO Steven Muszynski.
Right there that tells you a lot about both Mitchell and Splash Financial.
You might wonder why I didn’t ask Mitchell about the merger. Simple: he had agreed to do this show a month ago and that was predicated on him talking about First Tech and how it benefits from its partnership with Splash Financial.
He had not agreed to lift the kimono about this huge credit union merger.
About two thirds into the show I told him to beat it, not because I didn’t value his commentary but because I knew he had a lot of balls in the air that day and I didn’t want to take up more of his time than necessary.
But keep listening because Muszynski muses on why the company is in Cleveland - Cleveland! - and what his exit strategy is. His insights on building a successful fintech startup are gold for any who want to do similar.
Listen up.
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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, the ride just got a lot bumpier.
The news exploded in credit union land on September 30: First Tech, the 12th largest credit union in the country with assets over $16 billion, is merging with Digital Credit Union, the 18th largest with assets over $12 billion. The resulting crosscountry credit union will have assets of $28.7 billion, making it the nation’s seventh biggest credit union serving nearly 2 million members in 50 states.
Of course that’s pending NCUA approval but there’s no indication that would be withheld.
Is this a one off marriage - or is it the start of a new trend where ever bigger mergers help giant credit unions better compete with the money center banks and the huge fintechs where scale matters, great technology is table stakes, and the gloves are off in the fight.
On the show to shed light on what just happened and what the next moves will be is Peter Duffy, a past podcast guest and an adviser to many large credit unions.
Let’s cut to the chase. Duffy in the show says there’s nothing surprising about the First Tech and DCU merger and he predicts we will see more couplings of giant credit unions, probably soon.
What’s fueling this? Duffy offers his perspectives.
Listen up.
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Talking about money. Talking about pay. At credit unions.
Now do I have your attention?
On the Money Talks show today is regular guest Kirk Kordeleski who has brought along J P O’Connor, a credit union compensation analyst, who has joined PARC Street because key to architecting the right SERP retirement package for a c-suiter is pegging t to the right salary.
Not all credit unions are paying c-suiters appropriately, not when market rates are the bedrock, and, no, there are few if any cases of credit union execs who are significantly overpaid but there are plenty of cases where they are underpaid.
Says who? Says J P O’Connor who has the data - the market research - to back up his views on salaries.
What makes a compensation market appropriate? In the show O’Connor gives details about exactly this.
Are you underpaid? Overpaid? Listen up.
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News flash: Every credit union does not have to use NCUA’s National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund.
Repeat: does not.
Alas, federally chartered credit unions have no choice but to use NCUA's insurance product. But state chartered institutions do have a choice.
Meet Theresa Mason, CEO of American Share Insurance which provides primary share insurance to around 100 state chartered credit unions in 10 states and it also provides excess share insurance to cover accounts up to $5 million and that’s a product NCUA doesn’t offer.
American Share Insurance’s Excess Share insurance subsidiary also is the insurer for the Military Banking Facilities aka Community Bank that now are operated by Navy Federal. NCUA said it couldn’t insure this because the National Credit Union Act prohibits coverage of non credit union assets.
The MBF operates 60 MBFs and 272 ATMs at DoD facilities overseas. In the show Mason relates how her company scrambled to put together the needed coverage - it’s a good story of innovation on the fly.
Mason, in the show, talks about plans to expand American Share Insurance’s footprint into more states.
Listen up.
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