The CU2.0 Podcast

Send us Fan Mail What if you could increase your retirement income by 40%? Nope, you don’t have to invest in a new crypto currency and neither do have to skate on the wrong side of tax shenanigans. What you do have to do is listen to this podcast with Doug English , a North Carolina based financial planner who has specialized in optimizing the after tax income flow from a credit union executive’s...

Send us Fan Mail Is a Greenlight card in your wallet? If you have children – particularly school age kids – you want to know about Greenlight because this is a functioning debit card but it is designed for use by kids who are gaining financial skills as their parents guide them in the how to of using plastic. Understand, too, that increasing numbers of retail venues are cashless – plastic is neede...

Send us Fan Mail Are generous pension plans for credit union executives only for those who work in the biggest institutions, the ones at the billion dollar plus credit unions? Do only the rich get richer? What about the many executives toiling in the thousands of smaller credit unions? Much of the discussion in past shows in this Money Talks series with Kirk Kordeleski has in fact been focused on...

Send us Fan Mail You want to make more commercial loans. Join the club. So do more other credit unions.   But that is why this show is a must listen.  In it Gary Lewis , managing director of lending and deposit solutions at Jack Henry, and Dennis Janikowski , senior vice president of lending at P1FCU , tell the secret sauce that is helping P1FCU, a northern Idaho  institution, enjoy significant gr...

Send us Fan Mail Did you know that there are many, many loan programs available from the US Department of Agriculture – and many feature government guarantees?   Probably you didn’t know – these programs are something of a secret.   But over 100 credit unions – including Navy Federal – know about the programs and work with Greater Commercial Lending , a company that works with borrowers, USDA and...

Send us Fan Mail Medicare – you’d almost think it’s a four letter word, not the three syllable word it is.  That’s because it is an immensely complicated issue – Congress did write the federal laws that shape it! – and as Americans approach 65 suddenly they have to make an immensely complicated decision about their health care.   How easy is that? Not.   But consider this an enormous opportunity f...

Send us Fan Mail Your institution has digital tools, lots of them, but here are the two questions that genuinely matter:  Do your members know how to use them; and do your employees?   Too often the answer to both questions is nope.   Here’s a possible cure: John Findlay and LemonadeLXP. The LemonadeLXP promise is that it’s easy to use tools will turn your staff into digital mavens and  your membe...

Send us Fan Mail We have entered a brave new world of retirement planning – and that very much includes planning in the credit union c-suite.   Maybe the biggest change: there today is no fixed retirement age. A generation ago, for most executives, 65 was the target.  That was widely accepted in retirement planning. Now we have executives who want to retire early.  Others want to stay on past 65,...

Send us Fan Mail Of course you want more young members – members under 40 are on every credit union’s wish list. Enter Sparrow , which calls itself “the world’s most powerful student loan search.” Here’s what may be the best part: Put Sparrow to work on your website – it’s a white labeled tool and will blend in seamlessly – and students (as well as their parents) will be able to search for private...

Send us Fan Mail The answers you need to optimize member service – and keep your credit union on sound financial footing – are already available.   It’s just that they are hidden in your data.   That’s where Mitch Rutledge , CEO and co-founder of Vertice AI, comes in because his company are data scientists who specialize in finding useful information in the vast data stores just about all credit u...

Send us Fan Mail Three CEOs, one podcast.   Today’s guests are Todd Adams , CEO of Alloya Corporate Federal Credit Union, Gary Swindler , CEO of Washington State Employees Credit Union, and Seth Brickman , CEO of QCash.   What’s the occasion? Alloya has bought QCash which had been a CUSO founded by WSECU which also was its only investor. This is big news. QCash is doing fascinating work that also...

Send us Fan Mail Ask Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union on Long Island. How SERPs – supplemental executive retirement plans – figure into credit union strategic thinking and he comes back with a blunt answer: Talent retention.   Face this reality: today credit unions are at war but this is a war with multiple enemies – big banks, community banks, other credit unions, non...

Send us Fan Mail It’s not news that today’s members - unlike yesteryear’s - want to communicate with their financial institution on their own terms and that means how and when they want to.  Even though it is midnight Saturday. Enter Agent IQ a digital platform that let’s members communicate with their FI via web chat, mobile messaging, video chat, SMS messaging and more. There’s even a co-browsin...

Send us Fan Mail CU 2.0 Quo Vadis?   Where are you going?   It’s about seven years since Kirk Drake founded CU 2.0 which was rooted in the realization that getting smarter about tech was a necessary step in the survival of the credit union industry. So Drake built a company that helps fintechs figure out how to effectively work with credit unions and helps credit unions figure out how to work with...

Send us Fan Mail Small is beautiful. That’s the title of a collection of essays by economist E. F. Schumacher but it might as well be the title of a new Filene research report that explores how small credit unions can thrive.  You’re right, mathematically it seems there’s a drip drip drip of small credit union deaths but listen to Taylor Nelms , senior director of research at Filene , and he claim...

Send us Fan Mail Sixteen fintechs suited up for the fray. Just one could win.    Welcome to CU2.0’s Fintech Madness , Las Vegas style in the days leading up to the NCAA’s basketball tourney and you know which team won there. Say Jersey City, say it loud, Danny Hurley and his UConn team.   But back to Fintech Madness.  The competitors were all stars, many have been on the CU2.0 Podcast. Competitors...

Send us Fan Mail Go – right now – to this CU Times story about a new, bold marketing campaign from San Francisco Fire Credit Union, a $1.7 billion institution.  This is unlike anything else you have ever seen from a credit union – promised. On the show today is Josephine Chew , who tells how SF Fire came up with the campaign and why. The why ought to be obvious. For many – especially wealthier – m...

Send us Fan Mail Tom Barkley has a job you probably have never heard of. At TruStone Financial Credit Union he is VP, Solutions Architecture. What’s that mean? Listen to the podcast. He explains in detail. I wanted Barkley to guest on the podcast precisely because (a) I had never heard of this title; and (b) as I thought about it I realized that more credit unions need a person in this role as the...

Send us Fan Mail Retirement, face it, is a hugely complex issue and that is why we are fortunate to have Kirk Kordeleski on the show. He’s the former Bethpage Federal Credit Union CEO and now an executive with OM Financial Group which specializes in c-suite retirement plans. Kordeleski knows SERPs and in this show he tells about the issues facing executives - and their boards - when they want to c...

Send us Fan Mail If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs. Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds. In this fourth podcast you will hear from Anne Leg...

Send us Fan Mail If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs. Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds. In this third podcast you will hear from Saroop Bh...

Send us Fan Mail If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs. Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds. Yes, there is background, ambient noise.  Tune it...

Send us Fan Mail If you weren’t there, you weren’t there - but this year’s CU2.0 VIP Live in Boulder was three nights and two days of the unexpected, the unimagined, and a whole lot of interchange and learning among credit union and fintech execs. Over the next week I will be uploading five podcasts where VIP attendees share what’s on their minds. Yes, there is background, ambient noise.  Tune it...

Send us Fan Mail You don’t know Coviance - but you do know LenderClose and its founder Omar Jordan .   And now you know LenderClose has changed its name to Coviance. Why? In the show Jordan tells why and he also talks a bit about what was involved in the name change. Coviance is all about efficient processing which, generally, translate into faster lending decisions. Looking forward Jordan is opti...

Send us Fan Mail Ask Affinity Federal Credit Union in New Jersey how it recently came up with over $50 million - in cash - to fund branch expansion. Or maybe ask Wescom Central Credit Union in Pasadena, CA where it came up with $59 million in cash. The answer is the same for both: they sold their headquarters building. But that didn’t leave them homeless. They both leased back their HQ in a transa...