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Talk about miracles. River City FCU in San Antonio knew it wanted to make small business loans - many of its members owned and/or worked in small businesses - and you have to know how hard it is for any small business to snare a loan. Then up the degree of difficulty if the small business is minority owned (and River City's membership is majority Hispanic). How can those typically small loans be profitably made? And then the miracle happened. Compliance Systems, a provider of compliance documentation tools, realized that CDFI credit unions - community development FIs - were looking for ways to get more involved in business lending. Along the way Hawthorn River, a developer of community banking software, hopped into the action. So did IMM, a develop of e signature and digital transaction tools. For Jeff Ivey, CEO of River City FCU it was put up or shut up time and he did not blink. He was all in. The exceptional deal sweetener - Compliance Systems, IMM, and Hawthorn River agreed to donate their work, both because it simply was a wonderful thing to do but also because they now have available a tool kit that will let them put into place small business lending at many small credit unions. This sounds like a Christmas fable? Indeed. But it is a reality and in this podcast you will hear how it came together, how it is working out, and Ivey as well as executives from the three tech companies all offer perspectives. Here's a link to a press release with all the details. Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

 A machine just maybe can pick stocks better than a human - and just maybe credit unions can augment their investment services by offering a new robo-advisor service from longtime fintech Access Softek, a 36 year-old Berkeley CA based fintech that offers online and mobile banking and more to hundreds of FIs. Now Access Softek founder and CEO Chris Doner wants to put a robo-advisor service as well as self-directed brokerage tools in the credit union investment toolkit. The timing couldn't be better. With inflation galloping, cash in a savings account increasingly looks like a money losing proposition and, for sure, some members will be investigating shifting money out of savings accounts and into stocks - which often means shifting that cash out of the credit union and into another kind of institution. That gets more perilous because many of those institutions already offer things that look like checking accounts. Not only might member wallet share be lost it might come close to vanishing. Sure, right now just a handful of credit unions offer robo-advisor services - but it's a trend that is catching on elsewhere. Plus, many credit unions are scrambling to find new sources of fee income and robo-advisory tools plus tools for self-direct brokerage accounts may be just the ticket. Even better, Doner's investment tools are based upon fees paid by the members who use them and those monies are split with the credit union.  The pricing is very favorable to the institutions that climb aboard. In this podcast Doner tells about his investment tools for credit unions and he also disclosed why he has never sold his company. Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

Now the US Congress is weighing in on credit union boards and Chris Otey, an executive with CU 2.0 but importantly for this podcast, board chair at South Bay Credit Union in California, tells what he likes about the H. R. 6889, the Credit Union Board Modernization Act, which now has been voted out of committee and will come up for a vote in the full House. The bill has bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. CUNA has indicated support. Ditto NAFCU.  What would it do? It's narrowly focused legislation that would allow most credit union boards to meet six times annually rather than the currently mandated twelve.  That's it. But Otey is plain that as board chair he thinks this would be a very good move. He tells why in the podcast. Remember to tell your member of Congress and US Senators how you feel about H.R. 6889.   And, by the way, this podcast is a coming home for Otey.  He was the guest in the first podcast - click here to listen.  It's not exactly as big a landmark as the first Rolling Stones album but, for credit union geeks, it may rate right up there. Listen up.

There has to be a better way. A safer way. There has to be a way to swiftly let  a member re-set a password to gain entry to his/her accounts and to also defeat the account take-over criminals who specialize in seizing control of others' accounts and swiftly draining them. Know this: the criminals who do this are an industry.  They are professional.  And they work fulltime at this. Case in point: in the podcast Abrar Ahmed, CEO of Cozera Solutions, relates that criminal gangs will patiently call the same credit union, failing to win entry to the accounts they lust after but what they are doing is gathering intel. Pretty soon they know all the challenge questions and that means they also can know the answers. A credit union needs to know how to fight back.  id-go, a Cozera Solutions' tool, is one such way. Cozera Solutions explains how it works its magic: "id-go replaces discoverable secrets like passwords and one-time passcodes with strong passwordless biometric authentication so there are no secrets for attackers to steal. To protect privacy, authentication is executed with device based biometrics that never leave the consumer's device." In the podcast, Ahmed says that deployment of this tool to members is fast and seamless and can proceed with essentially no tech heavy lifting on the credit union's part.. The company is still in start-up mode but has already implemented its tools at four credit unions, a sector Ahmed is focused on. Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

 Tools, not tips, that's what those with damaged credit need to get themselves on the path to credit improvement. Right there is the guiding credo of Credit Mountain, a new CUSO that Cornerstone Foundation, the charity wing of Cornerstone League, helped birth.  Credit Mountain successfully ran a pilot with seven credit unions and now is looking to offer its app through more credit unions. In this podcast, you will hear from two Credit Mountain founders. The first that you will hear from is Frank Santoni, chief product officer. In a recent CU Times piece he is quoted as saying, “Credit Mountain blends the member-focus of credit unions with emerging technologies to deliver a personalized credit-improvement experience." The other voice is Nathan Pinto, CEO. Both founders are strong in the belief that credit unions have a unique role in helping those with damaged credit heal themselves - and they believe their tool will help in that journey. Listen up.

 You are going to want to listen to this podcast twice. That's because the first time you hear it you will think, this can't be so. It can't be that easy for a credit union to connect with fintechs and have all the compliance and integration and all that complex and expensive stuff just, well, handled by this Utah based open banking company I have never heard of. Then you will focus on this: Asa now is in a BECU sponsored fintech incubator and two things are true about BECU: it's a savvy, shrewd credit union and it knows technology.  If BECU says Asa is worth a close look, count me as hunting for my spectacles. In this podcast Asa founder and CEO Landon Glenn explains in considerable detail - but in a way friendly to non propeller heads - just how Asa works its magic act. Note too: Glenn tells here about discounted pricing for credit unions that get in the Asa queue pronto.  It really is a sweet deal for early adopters. He also tells the benefits for the credit union - it gets to offer a wide range of cool tech to its members and that means it also can offer niche products because the integration is easy; it benefits fintechs but making it easy for them to align with credit unions; and it benefits members by letting them remain credit union members but still use and enjoy the tech they crave.  "The industry continues to grapple with how to keep up with skyrocketing demand for innovation in a safe, secure and affordable way," said Landon Glenn, CEO and founder of Asa in a press release. "With Asa’s collaborative banking model, financial institutions and fintechs are finally able to join forces, connecting customers with a marketplace of fintechs without ever having to share sensitive data or credentials. Such a model is a win for the bank, fintech and end customer. We are proud to be accepted into the BECU FinTech Incubator, and we look forward to continuing this momentum and growth." You have to hear more? Of course. Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

Here's the big, immense, mind blowing idea that is central to this podcast: a competitive credit union has to view executive compensation as a strategic initiative, really no different from putting investment money into a CUSO or  rolling out a spiffy new mobile banking app. Understand this: NCUA regulations explicitly allow this allocation of capital. And grasp this: unless a credit union has invested in creating a first-rate leadership team it won't have the staff capabilities to make the most of its capital investments in more traditional vehicles. With leaders it's as simple as you get what you pay for...and the results your credit union gets are determined by the leaders you have invested in. That's the bold idea put forth by Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, one of the nation's biggest, and now an executive at OM Financial Group, which specializes in SERPs which are building block retirement plans for key credit union executives. In the podcast Kordeleski offers more than his big idea. He also spells out, in some detail, the steps a credit union needs to take to keep its executive team competitive and what the coats are likely to be. Note to board members: if you want to know what these steps will cost your institution, you will find out in this show. Want to know more about SERPs - or other matters raised in this podcast? Email Kordeleski Kkordeleski@om-financial.com This show is in a Money Talks series where credit union compensation is untangled.  This show will help some executives negotiate better pay packages and will also help some board members understand the ways in which 2022 credit union compensation is utterly different from 1992 comp plans, even 2012 plans because now competition for talent is so much fiercer. Hear episode one in Money Talks here.  It's not a prerequisite for understanding episode 2 but it does offer more insight into the credit union exec comp landscape. Have suggestions for topics to explore in this show? Email me, Robert McGarvey - rjmcgarvey@gmail.com Listen up.

 Steve Bone, a longtime fintech executive, has been given the big chair at Ongoing Operations - aka OGO - and now he is running the CUSO's efforts in providing credit unions with Business Continuity Planning (BCP), Disaster Recovery, Information Security and more. Bone is just a few weeks in the job - taking over from Kirk Drake (hear his recent podcast here) -- and he is full of optimistic ideas, from leading a shift to the cloud to helping small credit unions, even $100 million institutions and smaller, get world class information security services. That last is important as cyber criminals - including many abroad working in tandem with their governments - increasingly are targeting smaller FIs because most have porous security and, as Willie Sutton said, that's where the money is. OGO customers of course want to hear this show but so do just about all credit unions because Bone here outlines a lot of the pressing, critical IT issues credit unions face.   Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.You probably know Drake is also CEO of CU 2.0. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

 Kirk Drake spent 15+ years conceiving, building, and nurturing Ongoing Operations, a CUSO focused on disaster recovery, cloud services, and more. Now he is moving on. He leaves OGO in good hands. The new leader there is Steve Bone, whose podcast focused on his vision for OGO posts Wednesday. In this podcast, Drake reminisces a little about OGO, muses about the growing role of fintechs in the lives of credit unions and gets downright excited about Painted Hills, a CUSO he birthed and, definitely reads about Oregon's Painted Hills.  Three credit unions - Rogue, Maps, and Carter - are already involved. You want to hear about Painted Hills because it is intended to help solve credit union balance sheet problems that, right now, afflict many institutions. Listen up.Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.You probably know Drake is also CEO of CU 2.0. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

 Are you earning enough at a credit union? Here's the bad news: it's not easy to figure out the right answer to that question. Information about executive pay at credit unions is not easy to come by. Here's the worse news: If a top exec at a credit union is underpaid, very probably most of the executive staff is too - and that is an institution that will find it ever harder to compete against the growing numbers of credit unions that get it, that understand they have to pay their execs appropriately if they want to attract talent. Also know that exec compensation is not a matter of what's in your pay packet on Friday. Today's compensation has multiple moving parts and salary is just one piece. There also are long term incentive clauses, SERPs (supplemental executive retirement plans) and still more wrinkles. This has all gotten very complicated. Here to demystify executive compensation is Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO at Bethpage Federal Credit Union, one of the nation's biggest, and now an executive at OM Financial Group, which specializes in SERPs. Want to know more about SERPs - or other matters raised in this podcast? Email Kordeleski Kkordeleski@om-financial.com This show is the first in a Money Talks series where credit union compensation is untangled.  This show will help some executives negotiate better pay packages and will also help some board members understand the ways in which 2022 credit union compensation is utterly different from 1992 comp plans, even 2012 plans because now competition for talent is so much fiercer. Have suggestions for topics to explore in this show? Email me, Robert McGarvey - rjmcgarvey@gmail.com Listen up.

 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. Size now is table stakes for survival in financial services. Where once $100 million in assets was thought to be the scale needed for a credit union to survive, think much bigger now. Duffy - a past guest on the podcast back in 2020 - shares his view from the field of what is happening in regard to mergers and credit unions and what to expect in a near-term future.   One takeaway: think merger and your institution. Because it just may be coming your way. Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

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 her on the path to senior leadership.  You know Kordesleski. He's twice been a guest on this podcast, most recently talking about creative credit union compensation strategies. Link in the show notes. Dean gets animated in talking about what Suffolk needs to do to stay competitive in a region where three credit unions are bigger, and one of them is much bigger. How to survive? According to Dean it will be by harnessing smart tech and she is on the hunt for just that. Proof: your podcast host met her a few months ago at an Austin Texas conference hosted by CU 2.0 - and, she says, she already is pursuing tech projects with three fintechs she learned about there. In the show she mentions crypto expert Joe - that is Joe Keller, a digital guru and a past guest on this show. Link to his podcast in the show notes. And there's also a shout out for cannabis banking leader Sundie Seefried - and there's a link to her show in the show notes. Here's a question for you: Do sharedraft accounts matter anymore? You want to hear Dean's answer. A final thought to ponder: is Dean a harbinger of a generation shift that is radically remaking the CEO office in credit unions as Baby Boomers punch the clock for the last time? And what would that mean? Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

 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 future, and why credit unions need to be looking hard and now at deploying BNPL. Yes, BNPL has recently hit some bumps in the road - I explore that in a recent CUInsight blog - but Deeney is confident that BNPL will win a place in the lending portfolio of most credit unions. A key will be smart, savvy deployment. He talks about this. Don't miss this podcast. You need to get BNPL on your institution's roadmap. Starting about now. Listen up.

 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 for credit unions to play a part. Know this: he still very much thinks credit unions need to offer crypto solutions to members. Otherwise, some members will just take their money elsewhere. Also know that as this show was recorded in late June 2022, Bitcoin was down about 50% from a high a few months earlier. It had lost $20,000 in value in that span! Fiore said he is holding his crypto and he adds that the big investors in crypto whom he knows are doing likewise.  It's a down cycle for many markets, not just crypto, he says. Don't panic. And credit unions, he insists, still need to be investigating what crypto they need to be offering their members. Listen up.

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. In this show with Cohen we are edging further into the wilderness of risk and pondering the risks that are out there but we just don't know them yet. What hooey? Indeed, just as talk of a pandemic was hooey in, say, December 2019. And talk of a war in middle Europe surely was ridiculous in February 2022. And let's not even mention Hurricane Sandy, the Great Resignation and how about all those teller jobs you just can't seem to fill. There are so many risks to contemplate nowadays and what Cohen presents is a disciplined perspective on how to come to grips with the risks you face whether you know them or not. Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

 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 goals. An upshot: credit unions have a long way to go before claiming excellence in this. A piece of good news: many credit unions now seem more aware of their digital shortcomings than they perhaps did 10 years ago.   A key finding in this report: 84% of respondents acknowledged that digital is key to their institutional future. Telling about the report - and the reactions received - is Finalytics CEO Craig McLaughlin.   Listen up.

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 motto, Be Prepared. But that isn't easy when there's no knowing what you need to be prepared for. This is where Tim Daugherty enters because in this podcast he tells what a credit union needs in a business continuity plan - and he also muses about the maybe 25% that do not have a realistic plan in place. Joining him is Shane Butcher. a CU 2.0 Podcast veteran and director of CISO Services at OGO, who offers insight into where data and hackers figure into BCP. Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

 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 sky high inflation - and its impacts on consumer wallets and also the cost of money -  and suddenly, in some quarters, BNPL is just another four letter word, not to be uttered in polite company. But let's not exaggerate. Just this week Apple announced its intent to get into BNPL. Now are you confused? Here the unravel our confusions is Paul Davis from SRM who tells about a recently issued white paper on BNPL and its findings for credit unions. Of particular note is that SRM sees a continuing role for BNPL but stresses that it be viewed not as a standalone but as a component of a holistic product set. Davis also tells what a credit union needs to do in deciding where and if to deploy BNPL and he suggests that credit unions are well positioned to integrate BNPL with consumer financial education tools. Listen up to this installment of the CU 2.0 News Flash where we give voice to credit union news. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

 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 hear. NACUSO Business Services is a recent offshoot from NACUSO, the trade group for CUSOs and the credit unions that own and use them, and this offshoot has a specific focus which is to help credit unions and CUSOs hook up, especially CUSOs with a fintech focus. Messick believes that CUSOs are a tool that potentially give credit unions an enormous marketplace advantage. But he also knows that the two need a place to meet and mingle and get to know each other and each other's needs and wants. Thus the rise of NACUSO Business Services. Its offering include a listing marketplace where many fintechs just might want to be featured. This just might be a way to get better sleep at night.  Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

 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 should be a key credit union strength. And in 2022 that increasingly means digital. Face to face is so 20th century. In this podcast you will hear from Gene Pranger, executive chairman and founder of POPi/o. If his name is familiar it might be because he founded uGenius, a company bought by NCR in 2013.   Also on the show is Ashish Garg, founder and CEO of Eltropy. This show is the debut of the CU 2.0 News Flash where we will put voices to breaking credit union news. Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters. Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto