CU2.0 Podcast Episode 89 Bob Meara Celent on Covid-19 and Your Credit Union

From the future of branches (maybe brighter than you fear) to the profound impacts Covid-19 may have on your credit union, this conversation with longtime banking analyst Bob Meara, now a senior analyst with consulting firm Celent, will get you thinking.

For starters, accept that very probably Covid-19 will work lasting changes on how your credit union does business - and very probably there will be growing acceptance of digital tools that will last beyond the pandemic.

Face to face as a primary interaction will lessen as a result of the virus, he said.

But Meara also is something of a branch optimist, especially regarding credit unions.  Some mega banks are unquestionably over branched, he admits, but few credit unions are.  What he sees is that many credit unions need to make progress in deploying branches more effectively as tools for relationship building.

Members don't need branches for transactions.

But many still want them for relationships, advice, help.

Along the way, Meara tells why video tellers have been something of a failure, and also why digital only banks mainly have sputtered.

But he also talks about where credit unions need to play catch up - think digital transformation and, especially, digital account origination (opening a new account needn't necessitate a branch visit!).

Hear the Meara 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 88 Bob Fisher CEO (Retired) Grow Credit Union, Billion $$ Babies

Bob Fisher, recently retired longtime CEO of $2.8 billion Grow Credit Union in Tampa, opens this podcast by relating a call he had a few weeks ago with the present CEO.  Bob said he told him, "I'm calling you with glee. I am so glad I am not in your chair now" and that's because of coronavirus, the global recession, and the upheaval that has remade the world.

And yet you can hear this in Fisher's voice: he truly believes smart credit union CEOs will see opportunities, even amid this chaos, they will seize it and their institutions will prosper.

"CEOs need to be dreamers," said Fisher. Think big. Think how you can do it better. Think how you can invent the next way to bank before the others see it.

That's success.

Fisher's philosophy is plain: basically you grow or you die.  When he took over Grow it was in NCUA's doghouse and it had around $240 million in assets.

Now it is a star even in the competitive Florida environment.

You will hear how he did that in this podcast and you will also hear why he views NCUA as a credit union's friend.

You'll also hear why you cannot build a credit union around Baby Boomers, not one that will thrive.

There is a long, provocative discussion about the board and governance and how management needs to work with its board.

Want to know how to make indirect lending work? Listen to this podcast. Fisher tells how.

He also explains the institution's expansion into South Carolina (go Clemson!).

There's a lot to unpack in this podcast and it's all inspiring.

You will hear mention of prior CU2.0 Podcast guests - Bucky Sebastian, longtime BECU CEO Gary Oakland, and SECU CEO Jim Blaine.  Listen to the quartet and get an education from four of the industry's best leaders in the past quarter century.

Hear the Fisher 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 87 Bill Brooks Credit Union Doctor

You have never heard a CU2.0 Podcast like this one.  This is a podcast where sacred cows are roasted on an open spit, criticisms are hurled at regulators, huge questions are raised about the wisdom of credit unions emulating bankers, and then there is the giant question about the industry's future.

Welcome to the CU2.0 Podcast. This is your host, Robert McGarvey.  Today's guest, Bill Brooks, presently serving as a credit union doctor who is helping to save an institution in Maryland.  Earlier he worked as an NCUA examiner.

Brooks knows where the bodies are buried and here he draws us a map.

He also talks abut the why of the 2008-2010 mortgage meltdown, the looming meltdown in car loans, and why many credit unions have betrayed their core mission of focusing on members of modest means.

Double whew.

Hear the Brooks podcast here.

In this podcast there are references to multiple guests on earlier podcasts including Jim Blaine, Bucky Sebastian, Maine Harvest, Bill Bynum, and Cliff Rosenthal. 

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 86 Alan Bergstrom Exclamation Services

Do what you do best and let us do the rest.

That's the one sentence pitch for Exclamation Services, a Wisconsin CUSO that sees its mission as helping smaller credit unions - under $500 million in assets - thrive.

Every year hundreds of credit unions, mainly small, vanish - typically in mergers.

But what if those credit unions could hire a la carte services such as marketing, HR, IT, and back office - and in fact get higher quality workforces, at lower cost, because these are shared services via Exclamation.

Remember that: Exclamation is offering an alternative pathway to merger. A path that will let smaller credit unions survive.

Alan Bergstrom is CEO of Exclamation and, he said, Exclamation presently serves around a dozen credit unions, including one as small as $28 million and some as large as $500 million.

Geographic reach is mainly Wisconsin but the plan is to go broader because the Exclamation services adapt well to remote delivery.

This is an exciting option that just may help thousands of credit unions survive.  Sharing is baked into credit union DNA and this is real sharing.

Hear the Exclamation podcast here.

Mentioned in this show is CUNA's "Open Your Eyes" campaign.  Listen to our podcast with Teresa Freeborn on that effort.

Also mentioned is a Ron Shevlin podcast where he said that community banks are making a new push into retail banking - hear the details 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