CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 181 Walt Agius on CUSOs, Indirect Car Loans, and Lending in the 21st Century

 Walt Agius knows credit union lending.  And he especially knows what credit unions need to to stay competitive in the 21st century.

Consider this podcast a deep dive into today's lending.

The guest is Walt Agius, CEO of Lendsys, a fintech, and also CU Lending Edge, a CUSO that today focuses on car loans but, says Agius, he is looking to extend the portfolio. 

In the past he was CEO of CU Sol, a CUSO, and also CEO of California Bear Credit Union.

He really knows lending, especially car loans.  

In this podcast Agius offers tips about how to make indirect auto lending work for the credit union (and, yes, he knows many credit unions have grumbles about indirect lending).

He also throws out the idea that every credit union should be looking hard at syndicating every loan that comes in the door.  That strategy dramatically limits risk.  He said he would want to keep perhaps 10% of most loans but he would want to sell the other 90% of other participants - and this collaborative way is a particularly credit union mindset.  

Listen up.

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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

CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 180 Kirk Drake, Joe Cianciolo HomePace, Mike Kenzie Patriot FCU on Brainstorming Fintech

 Put your brainstorming hat on. You'll want it as you listen to this podcast that serves as a preview of the January 20, 2022 CU 2.0 Brainstorm event that will gather together fintech leaders and credit union executives for a day of lively presentations (topics to be chosen by the attendees) and conversation.

 Consider this podcast a mini preview of what the Brainstorm event will feel like.

Joe Cianciolo talks about how HomePace - a fintech that makes home equity investments that may be tapped by homeowners and buyers without taking on debt.  

Chief information officer Kenzie tells about the tech priorities at Patriot Federal Credit Union, a $900 million institution - and he tells what he looks for in the fintechs he works with

Drake tells about the urgency of matching up credit unions and the right fintechs and the challenges of making it happen.

It's a show that will leave you more informed and also energized.

Listen up.

Want more info on the Brainstorm event? Click here.  There's a sign up tool at the same site.

Want more from Cianciolo? You  got it.  Here's an earlier CU 2.0 podcast with him from June 2021.

Want more on the CU 2.0 Mastermind group? Here's a November 2020 podcast on it.  

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

CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 179 Bryce Deeney of equipifi and the Rise of BNPL

 BNPL.  Remember that because you soon will be using that abbreviation often.

It stands for Buy Now, Pay Later and it is just about the hottest trend in payments at retail.

Today's US market is small, maybe $50 billion but forecasts show the BNPL market crashing into the many hundreds of billions of dollars by the middle of the present decade.  And then the numbers start to get dizzily huge.

Why so much interest?  Oldtimers will recall that BNPL was a staple of 1950s retail but as credit cards proliferated it receded into the background.  But now it is again hot and that's because it speaks to the purchasing needs and desires of Gen Z and young Millennials.  Why don't they just slap down a Visa card and put it on credit? The advantage of BNPL to them is that they know the total cost of purchase when they make it.  The full payments amount, spread out over an agreed upon number of months, is there to see.

Pay the minimum on a credit card purchase and suddenly the total amount paid can vault much, much higher.

So the younger generations are hopping aboard BNPL which, right now, is largely used for consumer purchases of a few hundred dollars to maybe a few thousand.

Right now it's mainly fintechs that are playing hard in this space.

But Scottsdale AZ based equipifi is a fintech that wants to enable credit unions in particular along with some banks to play in this space.

In this podcast with co-founder and CEO Bryce Deeney you will hear about equipifi's secret sauce which is software that can approve and fund a BNPL loan at retail in under a minute.

No application is required. No FICO score is checked.

The basis for the loan is knowledge of the history of the member's checking (sharedraft) account and insight into how much surplus money generally is in the account.  So that's a solid basis for forecasting that this consumer can in fact handle this monthly payment.

In the podcast Deeney tells in detail exactly how equipifi works along with how it is integrated into the core.

Any credit union that wants more members under, say, thirty years of age needs to listen and take notes.  

Keep listening and you will hear the equipifi has plans to roll out a BNPL service for SMBs too.  How cool is that?

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

CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 178 Cameron Madill on Credit Union Websites and Much More

 Be bold.

That is the loud message from Cameron Madill, CEO of PixelSpoke, an Oregon headquartered marketing agency that primarily serves credit unions.  He also hosts "The Remarkable Credit Union" podcast.  

Too many credit unions simply want to fit in, he says.  

Dare to be different and that just may get you noticed.

That's just one take-away from this podcast - there are many more.

Want to know if your website is good? Madill tells us the main way credit union websites go bad. Use it as a checklist to judge your own.

Do you do member testing of your site? You probably will want to after listening to ths podcas because Madill tells the enormous benefits of testing with even a handful of members.

He also tells why credit unions need to embrace storytelling in their marketing, a topic he has written about for CUInsight.  

Buckle up because he also tells why PixelSpoke is a worker owned cooperative and why it is a certified B Corp. The latter is a credentialing program that designated businesses that put greater emphasis on purpose, not just profit.

As for worker owned cooperatives. that's a comparatively small slice of the cooperative pie in the US but it also is fast growing. Hear why PixelSpoke now is owned by its workers.  

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

CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 177 Amber Callahan VP of Marketing at 1st Advantage FCU and Kristin Harrison Web Strategies on Digital Marketing

 What you don't know about digital marketing can be your undoing. That is 2021 fact.

For some years credit union c-suite occupants have shrugged off digital marketing - it's just for kids, our members skew old.  Maybe that was true (maybe it wasn't as true as the c-suiters believed) but what now has become indisputable in our pandemic era is that digital is here and it has become a significant part of just about every life.

That includes credit union members.

Where's a credit union to get started in digital marketing? That's what you will hear about in this podcast with Amber Callahan, VP of marketing at 1st Advantage FCU in Virginia, and Kristin Harrison, director of business development at Web Strategies, also in Virginia.

They have had a multi-year journey together and you will learn how to get started in digital marketing and how to go to next, higher levels.

Do note: this is pretty much a tech free podcast.  There's no need to have a techie at your side for this one.

And accept the reality: we have entered the zone where tech is what matters. To quote the New York Times about Google and Facebook: "these tech companies are rich and powerful because they are the biggest sellers of advertising in the world."

Digital already accounts for more than half of global ad spend.  Many billions of dollars get spent on digital advertising.  There are good reasons for that. You will hear about that in this 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