The CU2.0 Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Title this show everything you need to know about fraud today but have been afraid to ask. Start with this: Fraud is big and getting bigger. That is the worrisome message delivered by Rene Perez, a fraud expert with Jack Henry, and seconded by Stephanie Ziegler, director of financial investigations at SELCO, a $2.8 billion credit union headquartered in Oregon. Perez is on the show...

Send us Fan Mail Can a banker successfully transition into a senior role in a credit union?   Can a credit union deploy a financial wellness initiative that also works as a competitive edge in marketing? Kevin Miller, CEO of $5.7 billion Travis Credit Union in Northern California, is on the show today and he is guilty of that banking background but he has logged 4+ years as Travis CEO. And he also...

Send us Fan Mail Two threads run through this show: the human impacts of AI and the credit union of the future. Ultimately the threads are connected.  If a credit union is its people, what is it when AI does an increasing amount of the work in a credit union? On the show to explore these ideas is Nenuca Syquia , CEO of BoxD, “Better Organizations by Design,” a Silicon Valley consultancy. Herself a...

Send us Fan Mail When will instant payments come to smaller credit unions? Perhaps the better question is: Will instant payments ever come to smaller credit unions? On the show are Bob West, CEO of CUSO CU*South, which serves  some 360 credit unions (in 42 states, not just the south), and Keith Riddle of Payfinia, which has launched an instant payment platform that integrated with CU*South’s techn...

Send us Fan Mail How does a lawyer - by education and employment history - become a top executive at fintechs?   Good question.  But here’s another one: how can a fintech help credit unions win members for savings accounts paying in the vicinity of 4% APR? On the show is Alastair Wood , CEO of Raisin , a fintech that helps credit unions market innovative products - high yield savings included - to...

Send us Fan Mail Can a credit union be a credit union without human employees? Are credit unions, in the age of AI, at risk of losing the humanity that distinguishes them? In this provocative episode, keynote speaker Joshua Evans , who bills himself as an expert on the workplace of the future, talks about how AI is transforming credit unions, how parts of this are to the good, but, he insists, cre...

Send us Fan Mail Careful or courageous? Which are you? James Grenon, vice president of administration at Summit Credit Union, a mid-sized institution in North Carolina, raised exactly that question in a recent CUInight story entitled: “Careful or courageous: The leadership choice that shapes culture.” Regular listeners know I have a bugaboo about what I see as the unhealthy risk aversion of many C...

Send us Fan Mail Come join Peter Rice, CEO of $2.3 billion Hanscom Federal Credit Union, on a walk.  A Long walk.  70+ miles.  On the Camino de Santiago in Spain and Portugal. Rice did that walk three times for his book Break or Become: How Hard Roads Make Good Leaders. What’s the book about? In an hour long podcast Rice explains and, listen up, it’s about the death of a spouse, raising two young...

Send us Fan Mail Can bill pay be revived at credit unions? You may remember, perhaps a generation ago, when bill pay was revered by financial institutions because it was viewed as creating stickier members who, having inputted a dozen or two bill pay recipients, were reluctant to change FIs because of the work involved. Bill pay lost a lot of its stick when various fintechs rolled out widgets that...

Send us Fan Mail The NCUA looks to be getting a new board chair: John Crews , a longtime Washington DC hand and currently Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Treasury Department.  Prior jobs include Policy Director of the Senate Banking Committee and Policy Advisor to House majority leader Steve Scalise.  He’s a guy who knows his way around inside the Beltway. There’s an urgency to his nomination be...

Send us Fan Mail How could I not talk with the CUEvangelist who sees his calling as “Spreading the Good News About CUs!” My interest in the CUEvangelist was triggered by a provocative piece titled “Black history is credit union history” that was posted at CUInsight and then I saw the author, Mark Brantley, dubbed himself the CUEvangelist .  Brantley has the chops to warrant that moniker.  He’s Ass...

Send us Fan Mail Wouldn’t you like to make more - and more profitable - auto loans? Just about every credit union would say a loud yes and that is why this episode is a must listen.  On the show is Zach Eychaner, the VP of Digital Experience at ELGA Credit Union, a $1.5 billion institution based in Michigan.  Also on the show is Mitch Rutledge, CEO of Vertice AI, a Georgia based company that says...

Send us Fan Mail Amanda Wick is a name to know when talking about things crypto.  A onetime US government prosecutor, Wick specialized in crypto currencies and money laundering.  Later she went on to found the Association for Women In Cryptocurrency and now she is a principal in Incite where she provides expert advice on crypto related matters.   Wick’s current focus: stablecoin.   In the show Wic...

Send us Fan Mail Asset liability management - ALM as it’s known - can be fun, good for a credit union’s balance sheet and, dare we say it, sexy. On the show is Daniel Ahn, CEO of Delfi , a company that - and I quote from the website - “combines deep public and private sector experience with cutting-edge AI expertise—bringing best-in-class technology to banks, credit unions, and other financial ins...

Send us Fan Mail Do you want to talk about bad debts and collections and…what’s that, you’d rather discuss athlete’s foot and gyms? Listen up: on the show today is Gwyneth Borden , founder and CEO of Remynt , a debt collection CUSO - funded  by One Washington Financial, the investment arm of Washington State Employees Credit Union and a recent guest on the show along with Starlight, an innovative...

Send us Fan Mail It’s time to talk about something really, truly exciting in credit union land. How about online/mobile calculators? Calculators! Yes, I hear those derive laughs but listen up: on this show you will hear from Tim Pranger at Appli , who has developed calculators that users genuinely like and use.  Katie Ullman , vice president of marketing and community at First Source Credit Union...

Send us Fan Mail What do you know about Gen Z? That just may be the critical question confronting credit unions today and that’s because, age 13 to 29, Gen Z is increasingly the focus of fintechs, neo banks and non banks who all want to grab these consumers. How can credit unions win in this battle? On the show is Lee Wetherington , senior director of corporate strategy at Jack Henry, and lately h...

Send us Fan Mail The CUInsight headline caught my eye: “Why credit unions must step up as financial stabilizers to rebuild consumer confidence.”   The piece was authored by  Dave Buerger, CEO of Union Credit and, before that, he was CEO of CuneXus, where he was a co-founder. At Union Credit the mission is delivering 1-click, perpetual loans to credit union members. 70+ credit unions are Union Cred...

Send us Fan Mail Agentic AI. Google’s Gemini explains what this means: “Agentic AI represents a shift from AI that simply 'talks' to AI that 'does.' While previous iterations of AI were primarily reactive—answering questions or generating text when prompted—Agentic AI systems are proactive. They can reason, plan, and execute multi-step tasks autonomously to achieve a specific g...

Send us Fan Mail And First Entertainment Credit Union Begat CineFi . Say what? First Entertainment is the big show business credit union.  Based in Hollywood, it has assets of around $2.1 billion and serves around 90,000 members, many of them who work in Hollywood, doing everything from acting to the skilled crafts (such as set building) that create Hollywood’s magic. On the show is Stephen Owen,...

Send us Fan Mail In mid February, Curql, the collective of 160+ credit unions, announced its first blockchain investment into Stablecore, a company that provides digital asset infrastructure for credit unions. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars now are flowing into stablecoin, a digital currency backed by fiat currency and accordingly it has little volatility. Big banks are pouncing on stab...

Send us Fan Mail Are you still relying on product based rewards for members? Meet the new tool on the block: relationship building. A trigger is that interchange rates are under attack and, for many financial institutions, it’s been interchange that funded the rewards programs. So what’s the new approach? On the show is Beth McCoy , CEO of CORA Loyalty , who provides a roadmap for building member...

Send us Fan Mail Fact: credit unions have lots of data about their members. Everything from home address to their liquidity.   Fact: credit unions, most of them, are woefully inept at mining this data to better serve those members and also to boost member retention and up cashflow into the credit union. Enter DeepTarget, a Huntsville AL based fintech that serves 285 clients, 85% of which are credi...

Send us Fan Mail Just when I thought credit card rewards initiatives were on the chopping block, here comes David Metz and Priizeout with an innovative twist on credit card rewards and it’s one that already is winning credit union applause.  Proof is that also on the show is Sarah Vasey, Chief Operating Officer at Michigan-based United Financial Credit Union, an institution with around $350 millio...

Send us Fan Mail Do credit unions have a future? And if so what? Meet Lamont Black, a Filene Fellow  - Credit Union of the Future. Spoiler alert: Black is optimistic about the future of credit unions. A finance professor at DePaul University, Black also is a busy writer, speaker, consultant who focuses on innovative technologies including AI and Bitcoin and, nowadays, especially Stablecoin. In the...