The CU2.0 Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Ignite and preserve. Right there is the motto of rkGoBig, a CUSO with a singular focus: helping smaller credit unions survive and indeed prosper. That seems a Sysephean task? Peter Barnard . CEO of CUSO rkGoBi g, firmly believes that cooperation among credit unions is a fast way to help more small credit unions survive. To that end, rkGoBig offers a basket of services include a co...

Send us Fan Mail  Real time payments.  Coming at you right now.  Are you ready? On the show is James Colassano , an SVP at The Clearing House , an institution owned by some of the world’s largest banks (including Chase, BMO, CapitalOne, B of A, Santander and more). And The Clearing House very much wants credit unions to get involved with its RTP network because its goal is ubiquity. Already hundre...

Send us Fan Mail It was over two years ago that Chase Neinken was on the podcast talking up Chimney , a fintech focused on delivering cool, fun calculators to credit unions. Neinken is back and here’s the reason: in fall 2023 Chimney won “best in show” at Finovate and that’s because it debuted Chimney Home, a new tool for credit unions that shows a credit union member today’s value of their home a...

Send us Fan Mail Scrolling through LinkedIn, I happened upon this post on Seth Brickman’s page: “I am excited to announce that I am now the President, Ranqx and can’t wait to help credit unions help small businesses and change communities for the better.” Stop presses.  Brickman, longtime listeners to this podcast well know , had been CEO of QCash, an innovative service birthed at WSECU and which...

Send us Fan Mail You're a credit union c-suiter and you dream about what good you could do if only you had more capital. Don't just but lottery tickets! Explore a sale-leaseback of the credit union's headquarters and branches. This is explored in depth in episode 241 where Ed Lopes and Steve Eimert of CU Real Estate Solutions  tell the nitty gritty. Oh, and my own personal credit un...

Send us Fan Mail Call this an encore performance with powerful, new information. Back on the show is Rhian Horgan , founder and CEO of Silvur, which she bills as retirement all in one place. As we age suddenly most of us have to deal with complex and, to us, wholly new topics such as Social Security and Medicare, both involving devilishly complex decisions - and a helping hand extended by a credit...

Send us Fan Mail Let the Greatest Hits roll on. This is the CU 2.0 Podcast Greatest Hits #7 - everything you want to know about USDA loans. That’s the US Department of Agriculture and it makes loan money available through credit unions to fund everything from farm equipment to renewable energy. I had no idea this program existed and that credit unions are involved.   Probably you didn’t either. Li...

Send us Fan Mail Regular listeners know that a pet peeve of mine is how poorly most credit unions market. And then I discovered Bo McDonald ,  founder and CEO of Your Marketing Co. where the focus is on marketing for small credit unions. That’s right: small as in under $400 million in assets. In most cases, McDonald’s company acts as a kind of inhouse marketing department because the institutions...

Send us Fan Mail The credit union share of auto loans fell sharply in 2023, down almost 5% from 2022 numbers tracked by Experian .   Does this augur a grim future for credit unions when it comes to financing cars? Or was it a blip on the screen? On the show is Will Ely , a solutions architect at Earnix , where he consults with clients seeking more effective auto lending strategies. According to El...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the CU 2.0 Podcast Greatest Hits show. There are over 300 shows in the library and yet a reality in the podcast business is that few of us ever even look at more than maybe the half dozen most recent shows. That’s why we are going to resurface some of the best and most popular shows as Greatest Hits. This is show #6 Matthew Butler on Charitable Donation Accounts and, no...

Send us Fan Mail The answers you need are in the data. Of course you know that. But do you know - really know - how to mine the data you have, and you have a lot, and drill down to the information you need today? On the show is  Anurag Mukherjee , the Head of the Analytics practice for Credit Unions & Community Banks at EXL, a large global analytics and digital solutions consulting firm headqu...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine this: you and your spouse go to Appleby’s for a Valentine’s Day dinner. You pay the check with your credit union debit card and, shazam, you get 10% cashback. An impossible story? Not according to Joel Richard ,  chief experience officer at Interra Credit Unio n in Indiana.   That cashback came to him because he was using a card linked to Cashback+ which delivers cashback...

Send us Fan Mail Can you pick out the bad apple? There are lots of retirement vehicles aimed at credit union c-suite executives but the fact is they aren’t created equal. Some simply are better than others. Back on the show today is Kirk Kordelesk i, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union and now a leading expert on credit union SERPs (supplemental executive retirement plan), and he offers t...

Send us Fan Mail Your mother dies or maybe it’s your spouse and you’re a named beneficiary in the will so surely it’s a matter of presenting a few papers and some ID at the relative’s credit union and then you’ll walk out with a check. Dream  on. When Saeid Kian’s father died from pancreatic cancer - meaning there had been time to get his financial papers in order - Saeid assumed it would be strai...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the CU 2.0 Podcast Greatest Hits show. There are over 300 shows in the library and yet a reality in the podcast business is that few of us ever even look at more than maybe the half dozen most recent shows. That’s why we are going to resurface some of the best and most popular shows as Greatest Hits. This is show #5 - San Francisco Fire Credit Union exec Josephine Chew...

Send us Fan Mail It’s a war out there for deposits. You know it.  But what you might not know is how to actually get more deposits, especially from new members. Psst. Here’s the secret: digital account opening. That’s what Apiture’s Jennifer Dimenna is here to tell us -but first there is this mind numbing statistic: about half of all credit unions do not have the capability to offer digital accoun...

Send us Fan Mail SELCO, at $2.7 billion in assets, is a big Oregon credit union.  It has had an active community relations - and giving - portfolio.  And then an idea took hold: SELCO decided to organize its activities and out of this has grown SELCO Steps Up where the credit union reimagines, expands, and organized its community relations portfolio. Every credit union should be looking at doing s...

Send us Fan Mail It was two years ago when we kicked off the first Kirk Kordeleski Money Talks podcast where the onetime Bethpage Federal Credit Union CEO talked about the rising importance and adoption of SERP retirement plans for c-suite credit union execs but also about the massive changes that are transforming the credit union industry. There’s a monthly show, an hour of prime listening for th...

Send us Fan Mail This is a show about Happy Money . Of course you have to smile at that. You’ll smile more knowing it’s the name of a company that is in the business of helping consumers with personal loans that in turn are issued by participating credit unions and of course the consumer is memberized along the way. So it’s also a member acquisition tool. The key Happy Money loan is the Payoff Loa...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the CU 2.0 Podcast Greatest Hits show. There are over 300 shows in the library and yet a reality in the podcast business is that few of us ever even look at more than maybe the half dozen most recent shows. That’s why we are going to resurface some of the best and most popular shows as Greatest Hits. This is show #3 - a reissue of CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 239 David Metz C...

Send us Fan Mail Kirk Kordeleski , onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, said it and his endorsement in a Credit Union Times article was so glowing that I knew I had to talk with Austin Wentzlaff, CEO of startup Nook.  said Kordeleski: “I firmly believe that Nook is at the forefront of something truly exceptional for the credit union industry. Drawing from my experience as a former credit...

Send us Fan Mail The Callahan report on credit union financial performance in 2023 exploded like a bomb.  Credit Union Times shrieked: “Credit Union Earnings Fell to Record Low in 2023, Callahan Data Shows.”  The publication added a kick with its subhead: “But CU results are even worse when the most recent three months are extracted for earnings and originations.” Had the sky in fact fallen? Then...

Send us Fan Mail Maybe 15 to 20 percent of your members have a neurodiverse condition - anything from dyslexia to color blindness - and, surprise, that means they will face big challenges everytime they log into a mobile banking app because that technology just isn’t designed with such conditions in mind.   Enter Mahalo with its Thoughtful Banking mobile app which features a neurodiversity module....

Send us Fan Mail Do we still need to pay attention to a credit union’s core system? You bet you do. On the show today is Shanon McLachlan , president of Credit Union Solutions at Jack Henry and - honestly - he draws a picture of core systems that are genuinely exciting, that will grow with a credit union as its tech needs grow. Regular listeners know that usually when I mention core systems it’s w...

Send us Fan Mail You’re a credit union, therefore you want more business members. Business members bring a lot of revenue into an institution.  Many credit unions in recent years have made a push for more small business members.  Many have fallen well short of their goals. There are many reasons why but there also is a big reality: most credit unions need outside help to achieve those goals. They...