CU2.0 Podcast Episode 41 Sherri Davidoff on Cyber Insecurities and You

Put phishing emails in front of credit union employees and how many will fall for them and cough up sensitive info? 20 to 60% will get conned.

And that can be costly to a credit union, both in terms of money and reputation.

Enter BrightWise, a Des Moines Iowa cyber training company created by Sherri Davidoff, CEO of LMG Security, and the Iowa Credit Union League’s holding company Affiliates Management Company (AMC).

After training, said Davidoff, the number of employees who fall for the phishing con tumbles below 10%.

What BrightWise will focus on, said Davidoff, are fun, short videos - think maybe five minutes - than an employee can absorb at his/her leisure.

Smarter employees are critical because how hackers work has changed, said Davidoff. “It’s no longer 13-year-olds in their moms’ basements that are hacking us; it’s organized crime groups all over the world,” Davidoff shared with NBC’s Today Show.

“People tend to think cybersecurity happens in the IT department,” added Davidoff. “Front-line staff are under constant assault from crooks and their automated robots, look-alike communications and other crafty tricks. We have to arm employees with knowledge, but also give them the tactics they need to sidestep cyber sneak attacks.”

Want more details on the Paul Allen scam? Read this.

Listen up to this podcast for a fast overview of the cyber threats credit unions face - and what they can, indeed must, do to protect themselves and their members.

Listen here






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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

CU2.0 Podcast Episode 40 the Jim Blaine Marathon

At 30 he took over as CEO of State Employees' Credit Union in North Carolina.  That was 1979.  Come 2016 and he retired. SECU had grown to $33 billion - and it had 256 branches and 5800 employees.

That's the Jim Blaine story and here he sits for a marathon interview, the longest in this podcast's history.

It's worth the hour. Make time.

Blaine starts out by questioning the wave of mergers that is now rocking the world of credit unions. Why not just liquidate the institution and give every member $1000?

Keep listening and you realize he's not exactly for doing that. In fact he denounces the loss of a few hundred credit union charters yearly.

What he is actually doing is highlighting a reality that, typically, those mergers accomplish just about nothing. The resulting institution, a bit bigger, is in fact no more competitive.

Blaine also worries about the loss of local institutions, where in many credit unions all decisions - including the trivial - get made at corporate HQ.

Is there in fact a future for credit unions?

Maybe. Maybe not.  Blaine highlights a strategy for keeping credit unions relevant. But he frets that many may not heed the message.

Are you listening?

Listen up to Blaine here.

Related podcasts mention in this interview include Bill Bynum, Maine Harvest. Teresa Freeborn, and Cliff Rosenthal.



Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available.

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

CU2.0 Podcast Episode 39 Futurist Chris Skinner

Consumers don't want a digital bank. They want digital banking. That's a building block belief of futurist-blogger Chris Skinner who has become a regular on the conference speaking circuit.

Even though what he has to say will upset many financial services executives.

That's because he thinks many are going about becoming a digital banking prover all wrong.

It's not about offering a mobile banking app.  It's about a reconfiguration of the whole service delivery system.

That system was created to distribute paper (think checks).

What's needed today is a system to distribute data (bits and bytes).

Skinner relates that one FI that gets it often asks itself before embarking on a project, what would Jeff do?

Jeff who?

Bezos, said Skinner.

And that's a step closer to really thinking digitally.

Here's the money question: Can credit unions keep up with the big money center banks when it comes to the race to digitalization?

Skinner has good news here. His answer is yes. His answer also is that the comparatively small size of credit unions is a plus. A lean institution is that much easier to put on a different course.

In this podcast Skinner tells how. He also tells a lot about what China has done to create a digital country - and it's inspiring stuff.

Listen up here.

Related podcasts include Ron Shevlin, Brett King and Thomas Frey - for more doses of futurist thought.





Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available.

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

CU2.0 Podcast Episode 38 Futurist Thomas Frey on Credit Unions Tomorrow

Will your credit union be in business in 2029?

The question is not academic and it's exactly the kind of question futurist Thomas Frey chews on.

We first heard him at Co-Op's Think '18 (video here) and the conversation picks up where that presentation left off: what's the future of the car business?

And know that the answer directly impacts credit unions.

Know too that Frey in this conversation explores the future shape of banking -  by 2025, he says, the biggest banks will be tech companies.

He also delves into the vanishing branch and what this means for financial institutions. There now are 90,000 branches. But they are disappearing at a rate of 1000 per year.  And then what?

The emergence of "banking deserts" - and the opportunities that may create for financial institutions - is another Frey topic.

So is the emergence of autonomous cars and what that may mean for credit unions.

One fact emerges from this conversation: the banking industry tomorrow will look very, very different from today's.

Will you still be in the picture?

Listen to the Frey podcast here.




Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available.

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