The CU2.0 Podcast

Send us Fan Mail  You know the numbers.  More credit unions are merging now and - crucially - more big credit unions are merging.  I give you the marriage of $2,7 billion Capital Communications with $5.5 billion State Employees in Albany NY. That takes your breath away. But Peter Duffy , managing director at Piper Sandler, says in this podcast that - to paraphrase - you ain't seen nothing yet...

Send us Fan Mail Meet Michele Dean, CEO of Suffolk Federal Credit Union on Long Island in New York and that is a $1.5 billion institution. That makes Dean one of few female CEOs of big credit unions - and in this podcast she talks about that. She also talks about her credit union mentor, Kirk Kordeleski, who hired her when he was at Bethpage and who gave her increasing responsibilities that put he...

Send us Fan Mail  Close a Series A round and that's a sign the venture capital community believes this is a company with a definite future. Congratulations to equipifi, which just closed a $12 million financing round .   In this podcast equipifi CEO Bryce Deeney - a December 2021 guest on the podcast in a full length show - tells why equipifi impressed VCs, what he sees as the company's...

Send us Fan Mail  You know Paul Fiore.  He's the co-founder of Digital Insight - a grand dad of online banking and still in use at numerous credit unions today. Fiore has been on staff at credit unions, he also was a founder of CU Wallet, an innovative attempt to create a uniquely credit union mobile payments tool. Now Fiore is spending much of his time noodling crypto and looking for ways fo...

Send us Fan Mail Now it has become time to fear the unknown unknown. That is a mantra of Amanda Cohen , the director of governance, risk and compliance products at Resolver, a developer of risk and security management software. Consider this podcast an extension of the themes and realities brought up in last week's podcast with OGO's Tim Daugherty on BCP , Business Continuity Planning. I...

Send us Fan Mail  Just how good is your institution at digital - and do know that today digital is the financial services superhighway. Just maybe there is no need to guess about the maturity level. That's because Finalytics has issued a free Digital Maturity Index - download here - where many credit unions share their own grades of how they are doing in terms of setting and achieving digital...

Send us Fan Mail The pandemic. The Great Resignation. Oregon wild fires. Tornados in Kansas.  Face facts: it is tough to know how to deal with the next disaster that comes on your scene because who knows what that will be? This century - from Katrina to the war in Ukraine - has been a wild ride filled with the unpredictable.  It has become essential for every c-suiter to live by the Boy Scout mott...

Send us Fan Mail  What a difference a few months make.  Earlier this year the hot idea in CULand was BNPL, Buy Now Pay Later tools that allow a consumer to pay for an item - anything from a pizza at GoldBelly to a fancy exercise bike - over multiple months. But now CFPB is asking BNPL players for lots of info about their practices, regulations are probably coming, and changes are afoot.   Add in s...

Send us Fan Mail  If you are a credit union executive you should be staying up at night chewing on this question: how do we survive in an age of relentless technology innovation and an increasing consumer acceptance of trusting their financial services to a fintech. Tossin' and turnin'. Guy Messick, a retired lawyer who now serves as CEO of NACUSO Business Services , is a man you want to...

Send us Fan Mail  The news is that Eltropy, which provides compliant communication tools to 300+ credit unions including text and chat, has bought POPi/o, a leader in video banking which serves 100+ financial institutions. This matters because - a stated goal of the company - is to provide community institutions the communication tools to compete with the biggest banks. Communication with members...

Send us Fan Mail Subtitle this podcast: what a fintech needs to know and do to succeed when working with credit unions. Just maybe knowing how to do that is the special sauce that has powered Digital Onboarding - not that many years out of the DCU Fintech Innovation Center - to having 80+ customers in financial services, mainly credit unions. And in this podcast Ted Brown, CEO of Digital Onboardin...

Send us Fan Mail How much do you make? Is it enough? A question for credit union boards: Are you paying your staff, especially c-suiters, enough to stay competitive in your marketplace? We are in an era of intense competition for talent. You know how hard it has become to recruit to fill teller openings. But do you know that a talent war is upending olden credit union beliefs about senior talent a...

Send us Fan Mail  What happens when you throw a bunch of ex-Googlers into an office in San Mateo California? Enter Upstart, a new breed lending company that helps financial institutions - credit unions very much included - make more, better unsecured loans and also do auto refinancing. Upstart comes at lending with a focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and doing a lot of data crunc...

Send us Fan Mail Tell me: do you have a VP of digital assets? Didn't think so. What exactly would such a position do? Good question. That's why you want to pay close attention to this podcast with Joe Keller whose title - drumroll please - is vice president of digital assets at Visions, a $6 billion credit union in upstate New York. Right, Endicott, New York. Not Cambridge Mass or San Jo...

Send us Fan Mail How good a manager are you? Be honest now.  Do you have a systematic way of measuring how effectively you are leading? Or is it all seat of the pants guesswork and, well, we have to be doing okay because the lights are still on? Let's be honest. A lot of credit unions are going out of business in the next decade. A lot. Right now there is a flood of fintechs into the credit u...

Send us Fan Mail  Seth Brickman's career includes the US Navy (remember Top Gun ? That was his motivator). Then he landed at Microsoft, he co-founded a startup Nicolette which builds tools to help parents make informed decisions about their baby's health, then he was at Amazon where he earned a patent  involving Alexa and the content delivered to its screen. Now he is at QCash, a CUSO cr...

Send us Fan Mail Buckle up, this will be a bumpy ride. That's because today's guest, Barb Lowman, president of CUNA Strategic Services has a huge portfolio of responsibilities - and she need to succeed to keep the credit union sector thriving. We are in existential times.  Break out your Kierkegaard because, honestly, the future of thousands of small and even mid sized credit unions does...

Send us Fan Mail  You know the numbers.  In just the first three quarters of 2021 the NCUA approved 117 mergers and there will be more this year. In the mix is an ever growing number of credit union acquisitions of banks. Here's the million dollar question: post merger how many members (or bank customers) will flee to a new institution. If you are going to have to learn how to deal with a new...

Send us Fan Mail Is the company name pronounced Datava, Data-va, or, what's your guess? Just as the pronunciation of the company's name may prove slippery for many, so too is it difficult to neatly sum up exactly what Gordon Flammer's company does. But I can tell you this: when American Heritage Credit Union worked with Flammer, it grew by $1 billion. Organic growth, Not acquisition...

Send us Fan Mail The company name flows much more smoothly off the tongue: Engageware .   Before it had been TimeTrade SilverCloud and that was its name a year ago when CEO Bill Clark guested on this podcast . Now he's back for an encore. The company's business remains helping companies - credit unions very much included - get more member engagement through whatever channel and tools the...

Send us Fan Mail Ask Very Good Security - a San Francisco based fintech - what it does that is different in terms of securing member data and the answer is blunt: what it does is different, better, even very good. To quote from the company's website about the question that spawned the solution: "Was there a way to secure the data, take it out of scope of liability, and still allow it to...

Send us Fan Mail  Before the Russian invasion, Ukraine's tech sector was a brilliant, bright spot in that Eastern European nation. By most tallies it brought in revenues around $6 billon in 2021, around 4% of GDP.   Foreign investment has been brisk.  The future definitely had been bright. Is it still? In this podcast the guests are Anatoly, CEO of CXDojo , a Ukraine based firm staffed by sof...

Send us Fan Mail  It's called Array for good reason.  That's because this fintech offers an arsenal -- ok, an array - of credit score tools such as a a credit score, a credit score simulator (what happens if you pay off that mortgage?), three bureau credit scores (they do differ), dark web monitoring and more. Credit unions that sign up for the Array services can pick and choose what too...

Send us Fan Mail  Take a guess: how many of your members earn income from the Gig Economy?  That can mean anything from an Uber driver, doing DoorDash deliveries, working as a realtor, or creating podcasts. Guesses run from 25% to over 40% of your members get some money that results in a 1099 form and, therefore, they very much need an easy way to track tax deductible expenses. Enter Hurdlr, an ap...

Send us Fan Mail  Time travel back 20 years. Imagine going into a credit union or bank and asking for a personal loan for $500.   Reality: unless you are a very established member/customer you would be shown the door.  Empty handed.  That's because, in those days, there was no way to profitably make that loan.   $50,000? Sure. But $500 for some emergency dental work? Nah. But now we are in 20...