The CU2.0 Podcast

Send us Fan Mail AI - is it real or a mirage? What is certain is that today AI is on the lips on just about everyone in credit union land. What also is real is a recent MIT finding that 95% of large companies with AI initiatives are getting zilch out of them. Ouch. That does not have to be the reality for credit unions. On the show today is Kirk Drake, CEO of CU 2.0, author of FINANCIAL , a 2020 b...

Send us Fan Mail In a year about 500 members of First City Credit Union in Pasadena die.  It’s a credit union with 57,000 members. And what happened after the member’s death? On the show is Saeid Kian , CEO and co-founder of Ribbon, a fintech that has developed a tool kit to help credit unions speed up the process of settling a member’s estate and also - this is huge - helping the credit union ret...

Send us Fan Mail This is a CU 2.0 Podcast first. Never before, in almost 500 episodes, have we done this. On the show is Crystal Zarse, a member of Interra Credit Union, a $1.7 billion Indiana based institution, and she is here to tell about her experience using the Prizeout Cashback+ debit card which rewards users with cashback often around 10% of purchase price, sometimes much more. Focus on tha...

Send us Fan Mail Call this a week of different kinds of shows. Today we are doing something we have never done before.   The guest - the only guest - is Lisa Weinstein , VP of Member Relations at Virginia Credit Union and a 33 year veteran of the credit union industry. There is no Eltropy employee also on the show. Weinstein is here to talk about Eltropy’s Collections 2.0 , an AI powered tool kit...

Send us Fan Mail When will you retire? What years of your life should be the ones where you work the longest, hardest hours? On the show today is Derek Coburn , author of Let's Retire Retirement: How to Enjoy Life to the Fullest—Now and Later , a book that very probably will rock your mind  because it challenges key beliefs that most of us share about retirement. For instance: at what age wil...

Send us Fan Mail You probably have forgotten about the role of credit unions in the country’s marijuana business - estimated to be north of $40 billion.  I know I had. It’s been years since we did a show on this topic. But on the show today is Kevin Hart , CEO of Green Check Verified , a business that provides tools to financial institutions that serve the country’s many marijuana businesses. As H...

Send us Fan Mail What exactly does a credit union’s chief strategy officer do?   On the show today is Bill Snider , the Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at Clearview Federal Credit Union, a credit union with around $2 billion in assets that serves 10 counties around Pittsburgh. Longtime listeners will recall that I have expressed skepticism about strategies at many credit unions, also their...

Send us Fan Mail Could shared services be the cure that puts a halt to the epidemic of mergers among credit unions? Could shared services help credit unions increase their efficiencies and dramatically lower their costs so that they can better compete against big banks and fintechs? On the show today are Vin Anand, CEO of Member Support Services (MSS), and an evangelist for shared support services...

Send us Fan Mail What’s in your credit union’s name? Shakespeare told us a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But credit union leaders are busy renaming their institutions, often for solid, fundamental reasons. How to do this right is the topic of this Greatest Hits #28 where Phil Davis from branding company Tungsten tells the how to of smart renaming. Listen up.

Send us Fan Mail About 55% of outstanding US home mortgages have interest rates below 4% and a byproduct is that those homeowners are deeply reluctant to move because it would usually mean taking out a new mortgage at 6% or more. Enter Takara which says it has a way to resolve what it calls the mortgage lock in effect. On the show is Takara CEO Jonathan Arad who says the solution is to use a Danis...

Send us Fan Mail Suddenly youth banking is back in the conversation and that’s because this time there is real optimism that it’s a product that’s emerging at the right time.  Case in point of the optimism is a recent Finovate article headlined “ Why Youth Banking Is Set to Surge In 2025 .”   Better news is that this market isn’t solely for the big banks and fintechs.  Now on the scene is Incent w...

Send us Fan Mail Talking about credit/debit card disputes and chargebacks. Probably you don’t want to.  For good reason.  One estimate is that there were $62.5 billion in chargebacks in 2023. And at most credit unions every chargeback or dispute involves a lot of staff time.  It’s an expensive matter and it is often profoundly irritating to members - at least some of whom decide to change FIs as a...

Send us Fan Mail Risk. For years I have said that to a credit union senior executive the foulest four letter word is risk. It’s a risk averse industry and that’s a paradox because a credit union makes money by taking risks. Then too we are now in a universe of unprecedented risk: there are wars, threats of a recession, threats of uncontrolled inflation, and of course there now is so much competiti...

Send us Fan Mail Want to know the secret about how to better target a new member acquisition campaign? Of course you do.   Just about every credit union in the country is scrambling to gain new members - but could the campaigns be more efficient and effective? In many, many cases the answer is a loud yes. Enter Vertices Which is blending data and AI  to give credit unions tool to enable more preci...

Send us Fan Mail Are you ready to grapple with the new NCUA requirement that every credit union have an up to date succession plan that covers both senior executives and board members? The good news: you’re not required to have a written plan until January 1, 2026. The bad news: if you don’t have a plan by then, or if your plan falls far short of NCUA’s expectations, the credit union can be writte...

Send us Fan Mail Some 4.18 million Americans will turn 65 in 2025 and many of them will have to make difficult and crucial decisions about their Medicare coverage. Credit unions can play a crucial role in this process and in this episode from May 2023 Rock Carter tells exactly how credit unions can get involved. And if you think Medicare has to be easy, well, get ready to hear the complexities. Li...

Send us Fan Mail 25% cashback on an Amazon purchase.  35% back at Kroger.   Now do I have your attention? And this is cashback on a debit card.  You thought debit card cashback vanished a decade ago? It had. But now it just may be coming back. On the show are David Metz , CEO of Prizeout , an innovator in adtech, and he is here to talk about a new product, CashBack+ Pay. Also on the show is Amy Si...

Send us Fan Mail Buckle up, there may be turbulence on this ride. On the show today is Elizabeth Eurgubian , now a lobbyist in Washington DC but who just a few months ago served as NCUA Director of the Office of External Affairs and Communications and Policy Advisor to Chairman Harper.  That’s an important position at NCUA - it’s a political appointment. Before that  she was deputy chief advocacy...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s topic: How to Pass the NCUA Tech Audit (Without Losing Your Mind) The guest is Mike Robins, COO  at Dynamic Edge, a company that’s helped many credit unions - particularly ones with assets between $25 million and $400 million - successfully navigate the NCUA Tech Audit which occurs “periodically,” according to the agency. Hear what’s involved in the audit, how to pass it a...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s show is Paul Dionne , chief strategy officer at Quantum Governance, L3C.   What’s an L3C?  Good question: It’s a low profit limited liability company and, in the case of Quantum Governance, that means it “help[s]  nonprofits, credit unions, associations and foundations realize the full potential of their missions.” The company’s work with credit unions revolves around g...

Send us Fan Mail Is this the twilight of the golden age of credit unions? On the show to discuss exactly that question is Jim Blaine, the now retired longtime CEO of SECU, the second biggest credit union in the country.  Blaine may be retired but he still has opinions about credit unions, as evidenced in his blog, SECU - Just Asking! In this podcast Blaine also digs deep into the question: what ex...

Send us Fan Mail No one has a richer background in credit union journalism than Frank Diekmann.   Over the past 35 years he has been co-founder and editor at Credit Union Times , publisher at C redit Union Journal, co-founder at CUToday, and now he is the founder of The CU Daily , a new publication that is the liveliest credit union pub in my opinion. Nobody has written more published words about...

Send us Fan Mail This show started out as an exploration of Jack Henry’s 7th annual Strategy Benchmark Survey where CEOs of credit unions and banks reveal what really matters to them.  It’s a data trich survey, there’s a link in the show notes and I say that because the talk with Lee Wetherington – Senior Director of Corporate Strategy at Jack Henry quickly veered into what’s happening in Washingt...

Send us Fan Mail Peter Duffy’s message is plain: The pace of mergers will get fatter and it will involve credit unions of all sizes, from the small to the mega institutions. First Tech and DCU may seem an outlier but now there is ENT and Wings and the pace will keep up, says Duffy who now has joined SRM . Will the chaos and uncertainty in Washington DC slow the merger pace? Duffy thinks not, indee...

Send us Fan Mail This show is a proof to me that my insistence on doing podcasts without written questions in hand or a script is the right way. I agreed to this show - a talk with Michael Crowl , ceo of $4 billion Austin Texas based UFCU - because I’d heard he had been developing an interesting strategic plan. At many credit unions there are strategic plans but often they aren’t interesting and o...