CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 49 Alain Glanzman WalletFi

Take a guess. How many recurring payments does a typical consumer have set up, for how much money monthly?

Alain Glanzman, CEO of fintech WalletFi is focused on exactly that issue - and also on the huge potential it represents for credit unions.

The answers are 10 to 15 recurring payments totaling $857 per month.

Surprised? Think Netflix, T-Mobile, the NY Times, Cox Cable, maybe an electric bill, and the list goes on.  We have moved from a society that paid via bill pay, or perhaps writing a check, to one where many of us have set up multiple vendors to in effect pay themselves monthly via our debit or credit cards.

Enter WalletFi. The company says of itself: "WalletFi was founded to solve a problem our co-founders personally felt: the pain that comes from a lost or reissued card. Focused on the customer experience first, WalletFi grew to provide technology that helps users manage their subscriptions and recurring charges, and bounce back from a lost, stolen, or reissued card.

Financial institutions identified these pain points in their customer’s life cycles as well, and now rely on WalletFi to provide a subscription management platform that will increase interchange revenue, offer an unbeatable user experience, and win the battle for top-of-wallet."

WalletFi now is looking for credit unions to partner with.

In this podcast, Glanzman offers intriguing insights into how fintechs and credit unions can work together, how thy have different definitions of a "quick deal," and - above all - he expresses confidence that many credit unions, with their focus on the member experience, are ideally positioned to champion bringing more control to consumers over their recurring payments.

On which note: do you know how many recurring payments you have set up?

Don't be surprised if you stumble. That's where WalletFi comes in. It gives the member visibility into payments many of us have forgotten about.

Listen up 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

CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 48 Susan Mitchell on the Credit Union Underground

Circle the date, October 26. Las Vegas. That's when Susan Mitchell, a longtime credit union consultant, is convening another meeting of the Credit Union Underground, this time in parallel with Money 20/20, probably the meeting of the best and brightest in the disruptive quadrant of financial services. 

The point of each Underground is collision with disruptors. A lot - maybe most - credit union executives cling to their individual comfort zones. But get with reality. Maybe half of today's 5500 credit unions will go poof in the next decade.

Bye bye.

At the Undergrounds, attendees get exposed to disruptive thought - but they also see they aren't required to face the challenges alone, a lot of credit union people are in the same boat.

A Mitchell belief is that widespread cooperation helped build the credit union industry. And a renewed commitment to cooperation just may be its salvation.

Ask yourself this: what's your institution's purpose? Who did you help today? Whose life did you change?

Credit unions were created to help community members, to change lives. Are they still doing that?

And know that that is a path to survival. Purpose fuels existence.

This is a wide ranging podcast. Listen and you just may find your path to survival.

For Ramones, go here.

Listen to the Mitchell 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

CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 47 Randy Karnes CU*Answers for Small Credit Unions

Randy Karnes just may be the poster boy for the cooperative entrepreneur.  In the process he may also have come upon the formula that will enable many hundreds - perhaps thousands - of small credit unions to thrive in the 21st century.

How can they? Aren't they technology deserts in an era of digital banking? Nope. Not with CU*Answers, the CUSO Karnes helms, at their side.  CU*Answers once was simply a core system provider but as the technology needs of credit unions have evolved, so has CU*Answers.  It now offers online banking, mobile banking and more; you want to hear why in this podcast.

178 credit unions own CU*Answers and they range in size from microscopic to over $1 billion in assets.  The typical CU*Answers credit union is $80 to $100 million in assets and, say many pundits, that's an endangered species.

 Karnes dissents. "I don't think they will be gone."

He adds, "Credit unions will survive to the extent they stay creative and disruptive."

Remember that. The point of a credit union is not to be staid and conservative. It's to rock the boat.  That's why they were founded, to be different.

The ones that prosper today will do likewise.


Listen 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

CU2.0 Podcast Episode 46 Kirk Kordeleski on Doubling Your Size and More Good News

Can a credit union double in size in five years? You bet, says Kirk Kordeleski, a senior consultant with Best Innovation Group and before that, CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union on Long Island where he did exactly that.

Kordeleski points to Navy and also BECU as examples of other credit unions that have also experienced exponential growth.

How? That is why you want to listen to this podcast. He gives the recipe, in some detail, here.  Boiled down it's think competitively and believe - really believe - you can use inherent credit union advantages such as tax exemption to take a billion or more in dollars of business away from money center banks who very probably won't even notice it is gone.

There's more in this podcast. Kordeleski also tells why this is a time of immense, perhaps unprecedented opportunity for credit unions. Use digital and use data to allow your institution to expand in ways that a generation ago would have been unimaginable.

The bad news: a decade from now the number of credit unions may be about half what it is today. Expect 2000 credit unions to vanish in the next decade.  You don't want to be among them?  There are plenty of survival tips in this podcast.

Listen 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