CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 85 Shane Butcher on Remote Workers, Credit Unions, and Coronavirus Part 2

Shane Butcher is a security guru at CUSO Ongoing Operations and lately has been busy helping numerous credit unions safely transition their employees to working from home.

The good news: credit unions that approach this methodically, carefully will probably be able to mitigate risks.

The bad news: credit unions that rush into this, haphazardly, with inadequate employee training may not.

One key: stress to employees working from home that they need to practice the very same security awareness as they do in the office. No shortcuts.

Butcher also warned that very probably cyber criminals are preparing to attempt to feast on remote credit union workers.  The risks are real.

Note, too, that Butcher's OGO experience entails working with credit unions with assets under $100 million to ones with substantially over $1 billion. It's a diverse customer mix but that gives him perspective on what is realistic, what is needed, what can happen.

"A lot of our customers are asking for help getting their remote workers online."

His three word cure for a lot of today's credit union security worries: training, training, training.

Butcher has significant concerns about BYOD access to the institution's network - listen up find out why. But it starts with this: "we don't know what's on home devices" and that can range from malware to spyware to worse.

Hear the companion podcast on credit union remote workers with Kevin Langford of Georgetown Kraft Credit Union in South Carolina here.

Hear the Butcher podcast here.

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

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 84 Kevin Langford on Remote Workers and Cyber Insecurities in the Age of Coronavirus

Suddenly credit unions across the nation are ordering employees home, as part of the response to the coronavirus pandemic.  And that is triggering a tidal wave of worries about the possible cyber insecurities that will result as newly empowered employees log into the credit union networks.

Hitherto, at many credit unions, the workers who had home access to the network were mainly senior, experienced, and both well trained and well equipped.

Today's newly drafted home workers often lack the right equipment and their training may have been brisk.

Global cyber criminals are said to be eyeing these workers the way a hungry lioness eyes a slow wildebeest in the Serengeti.

 That's why you want to hear from Kevin Langford, chief information officer at $140 million Georgetown Kraft Credit Union in South Carolina.

Langford has trained many workers in the secrets of safe cyber work at home and here he tells what every credit union needs to be doing.

This topic is so big that next week we will post another podcast on the same theme with Shane Butcher, senior solutions and security architect at CUSO Ongoing Operations. 

You need to listen to both.  The risks are extraordinary today and here are solid suggestions for navigating turbulence securely.

The UPS scam info is here.

The dropped USB drive info is here.


Listen to this podcast here.  

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

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 83 Ron Shevlin, Again, on How to Win in Financial Services

Who will win: community banks or credit unions?

War on.

A keen observer is Ron Shevlin, diretor of research at Cornerstone Advisors and author of a new report, What's Going on in Banking 2020.  It's a data rich report. Download it, read it.

Shevlin was an early guest on the CU2.0 Podcast - Episode 21 - and he's back in this wide ranging conversation about credit unions, technology, and ways to win.

For instance: can community banks regain a hold on retail banking, a niche they ceded to credit unions some years ago?

Can credit unions succeed at taking business banking from community banks?

A growing trend, per Shevlin, is that consumers have multiple checking account relationships that they seek to optimize - and a key is how easy it is to quickly move money around today.  What does your institution know about this?

A credit union failing is a persistent belief that "our success is our people," said Shevlin.

Millennials are more focused on technology.

"It is not about people, it's about meeting members' needs," said Shevlin.

He also gives a formula for succeeding in financial services today. It comes near the end of the podcast. Listen up.

There's a reference to Bill Bynum, CEO of Hope Credit Union. Hear his podcast here.

Listen to the Shevlin 2 podcast here.

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

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 82 Jon Ogden MX on the Future of Banking

Does your credit union have a future?

There's the blunt question.

Welcome to the CU2.0 Podcast with your host Robert McGarvey. Today's guest Jon Ogden, head of strategic content at digital firm MX which has recently released two provocative reports, The Ultimate Guide to the Future of Banking and the Ultimate Guide to Digital Transformation.

Read them, they are free.

But know they may keep you up at night.

That's because many, many institutions - thousands of credit union among them - just don't get it. They cling to an analog, physical world where consumers - most of them and more daily - crave better digital experiences.

The MX reports - filled with consumer research - prove this.  Today 86% of us say our primary contacts with our FI are mobile and online. Just 14% say it's via branch or ATM.

59% of us say we would take a loan from a tech company.

49% of us predict "far fewer branches."

This is a fast ride through lots of numbers but the bracing take away from the numbers is that now is the time to transform - or perish.

In this podcast Ogden talks about work MX has done for credit union giant BECU.  Hear our podcast with retired CEO Gary Oakland.

Know that some of the opinions in the reports come from banking futurist Chris Skinner.  Hear our podcast with Skinner.


Listen here

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

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 81 Keith Leggett and Bank-Credit Union Mergers and Dancing with the Devil

When a credit union buys a community bank is that dancing with the devil?

Welcome to the CU2.0 podcast with your host Robert McGarvey. Today's guest Keith Leggett, now retired Chief Economist with the American Bankers Association who still actively writes his blog, Credit Union Watch.

The topic of the talk: bank - credit union mergers.

Some banking experts are up in arms about these mergers.  Not Leggett.  He says community banks that are up for sale generally are looking for the best valuation and credit unions, in some cases, are exactly that as they seek to add new business capabilities - especially in business lending - and a fast route to that capability is buying the right community bank and retaining key staff.

On that note. listen to the CU 2.0 podcast with retired SECU CEO Jim Blaine, whose ideas are referenced by Leggett. We also discuss Maine Harvest, a new charter, and Leggett points to research on credit union bank mergers via Filene, also the St. Louis Fed.

Numbers to remember. In the past two years there have been around 400 bank - bank mergers. There have been around 20 bank - credit union deals.

Meantime, Leggett tempers his positive perspective on bank - credit union deals by saying there needs to be a two way street, that is, the regulator needs to lighten up about credit unions selling out to banks.

Why do bankers so often loudly scream about bank mergers with credit unions? A lot has to do with association politics, says Leggett, who adds that there's always a stronger response when a wolf is said to be at the door.

Listen here

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

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