CU2.0 Podcast 118 Mickey Goldwasser Chief of Staff Payrailz On AI and What's Next In Payments

 Do it for me. That is exactly what more and more credit union members expect from their financial institution. Especially around payments.

Amazon's Alexa is smart enough to remind us that, based on our order history, it's now time to re-order cat food.  Why can't my credit union remind me to pay my car lease, my mortgage, and the Discover bill that is always due on the 15th?

The insight of Payrailz, a Connecticut based fintech, is that the credit union in fact probably has all the tools it needs to do those reminders - even to initiate the payments for members that choose.

Enter the world of AI powered payments.

Mickey Goldwasser, chief of staff at Payrailz, said we are entering into an era of "Do It For me" - and AI makes that a very possible reality.

A member forgot to pay his/her American Express card bill - but won't that member welcome a nudge? "Usually you have paid American Express by now?  Is that bill due?"

Smart payment rails can also be called upon to actually make the payment.

The beauty is that drudgery is being taken off the member's plate - and smart machines are running with it.

13 credit unions are in CU Railz, a CUSO that owns Payrailz. A few other credit unions, and a smattering of banks, also have adopted the technology. But, says Goldwasser, 90% of Payrailz business is with credit unions.

Size varies from small to the $12 billion Sun Coast.

Listen up. The time is now for smarter payments tools that anticipate what members want to pay and help them do it.

Do it for me is now a reality in payments.

This, clearly, is the next evolution in payments.

Hear the Payrailz podcast here.  

Dig deeper into AI and credit unions in earlier CU2.0 Podcasts - with Posh Development and Coalesce, both DCU Innovation Lab companies (our podcast with the Innovation Lab director Vasilios Roussos is here).

A recent podcast with Fahd, the CEO of Abaka, tells more about AI and how credit unions can sell smarter. 

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

CU2.0 Episode 117 Fahd Rachidy CEO ABAKA on AI and How to Sell Smarter

Here's the fast track to making members feel they are being sold to: offer them products and services they have no interest in or use for. How often does your credit union do exactly that? 

But if you want a member to feel understood, valued, offer him or her something they honestly want or need.

If only it were so simple, you grumble.

Maybe it is exactly that simple.

Meet Fahd Rachidy, the CEO of London-based ABAKA, a company in the business of harnessing AI to help financial institutions - credit unions included - better serve their members.

Fahd also is a strong believer in democratizing his tools.  He proudly says ABAKA serves small financial institutions and giants.  The company uses a SaaS model - software as a service - so users pay as they go and for what they consume.  Some FIs spend low five figures in a year with ABAKA. Others may be high six figures and beyond.

So what you want to know is how offer members what they want. Really.  Listen to the podcast where Fahd tells about ABAKA's tools for zeroing in on what he calls the next best action - that is, pinpointing what this member wants now.

How? By using account data the institution has on hand, supplemented with publicly available third party data (from social media posts to credit scores and history).

Crunch that data right, says Fahd, and an institution can jump from a 3% conversion rate to 30%.

You want to hear more about this.

Along the way in this podcast Fahd also talks about ABAKA's conversational AI chatbot tools - and many members in fact prefer to talk with a machine - and also about how AI is making PFM tools, at long last, easy to use and actually useful.

The theme of this podcast is that AI has come of age and now is ready for credit union deployment.

Listen up.

Dig deeper into AI and credit unions in earlier CU2.0 Podcasts - with Posh Development  and Coalesce, both DCU Innovation Lab companies (our podcast with the Innovation Lab director Vasilios Roussos is 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

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

CU2.0 Podcast Episode 116 Barclay Keith Artis Technologies on a New Lending Strategy

 Most credit unions continue to wrestle with too many deposits and too few places to park that money profitably.  Call this Part 3 of the CU2.0 deep dive into lending in the pandemic era and that is because Barclay Keith, CEO of Artis Technologies, has developed tools that will enable a credit union to empower business members - think home improvement retailers, contractors, jewelers, etc. - to initiate personal loans to consumers, typically in the range of $3000 to $65,000.

For the credit union, this just may be a high yield lending arena that also may well bring in new members.

For the business, a fast, convenient way for a shopper to borrow may bring in bigger and more sales.

For the consumer, this may be a quick and easy way to borrow at competitive rates.

Win-win-win.

For the consumer it typically takes minutes to complete a loan app, a process that can be initiated and completed at the retailer.  The underwriting is AI powered, there's instant KYC verification, and the lending institution - the credit union - gets to set its own policies. Some may not want to lend to subprime borrowers, others may.  Some may want to lend only to super-prime borrowers, many will have a broader standard. Artis Technologies lets the lending institution set the policies it is comfortable with.

The conversation with Keith in this podcast is a broad look at how the Artis tools work and the benefits that may come to credit unions that deploy them.

Part 1 of the new lending tactics series is #113 with Sherif Hassan on small business lending.  Part 2 is #114 with Nicholas Hinrichsen on opportunities in refinancing car loans and also lending to subprime car buyers.   

You know you have money on hand you want to put to work.  Listen to the CU2.0 trilogy for ideas you can use today.

Barking alert:  There is some barking and growling in this podcast, noises that defied filtering software used in editing the podcast.  The podcast is clearly audible.  And no animals were injured in recording the podcast.

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

CU2.0 Podcast Episode 115 Dan Michaeli Glia on Digital Member Service

 Call this the best of times for digital member service company Glia and that is because, in the pandemic era, credit unions' traditional member service tools have fallen out of favor and meantime just about all of us have become significantly more digital, said Dan Michaeli, Glia CEO and co-founder.

Just a couple years ago, many credit unions looked at digital customer service tools as a "nice to have." That's changed for many and, suddenly, these tools are must haves.

Especially at credit unions, says Michaeli and that's because credit unions have always had a member centric attitude. And digital tools just may be the best tools around.

Here is what Glia says it does: "Glia creates digital-first moments that simplify and transform conversations between institutions and their customers using Messaging, Video, Voice, CoBrowsing, and Artificial Intelligence." 

Even better, as service switches from channel to channel - as often happens - the context and history are retained. No more maddening moments for a member who just spent 10 minutes explaining a problem to a rep and now is asked by a new rep to  tell about the problem. From scratch.  How frustrating is that?

Right now, we are in a shift from telephone based member service into a variety of digital channels, including oldfashioned voice, but with text, AI and more claiming ever larger roles.

An upshot is that members may find themselves experiencing better service and now they will be able to pick their own channel.

Are these tools that mainly will abound at only the biggest financial institutions? Michaeli believes otherwise. He in fact believes that this technology levels the playing field and a $100 million credit union just may have member service tools that rivals that of a big five money center bank.

How cool is that?

You want to know - indeed, in the Covid era you need to know - about digital member service and that's why this half-hour is a must listen.

Listen here