CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 215 Robert Johnston CEO of Adlumin on Cyber War and Your Credit Union

 Robert Johnston was a Marine and that is where he honed his skills at waging war in the cyber dimension - and you better believe that is where a lot of warfare now happens, from Russia knocking out ATMs in neighboring countries through nation state hackers targeting financial institutions, both to fuel widespread anxiety and simply to plunder others' money.

Johnston has a pedigree at this. He led the investigation into the Russian Intelligence Service breach of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 and before that he worked on the hack of the Joint Chiefs of Staff email in 2015. That is cyber war at its highest levels.

Nowadays Johnston and Adlumin, the company he co-founded and where he serves as CEO, is an active player in helping credit unions in particular bolster their cyber security and that means dealing with everything from Denial of Service Attacks (DDos) through Ransomware, which is today's flavor of the moment. Along the way Johnston also works with helping credit unions stay compliant with cybersecurity requirements set out by the regulator and they are voluminous.

It's a fast changing field and in this podcast Johnston gives a glimpse into its challenges and its excitement.

Think of this podcast's subtitle as Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Cybersecurity But Were Afraid to Ask..

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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 News Flash A Quick Payments News Recap with Jason Bohrer of the US Payments Forum

 Quick now, are you current on what's happening in the fast changing payments universe? Can you ace a pop quiz on the hot topics in payments such as

*         Contactless payments’ role in a post-pandemic economy (Tap to Pay, Digital Wallets, etc.)

·         Faster payments and key considerations for the FedNow service

·         Emerging payments fraud concerns

·         QR codes and alternative payment rails

·         Credit card trends and the travel spending resurgence

 

 

Do you have a half hour? If you do listen up to Jason Bohrer of the US Payments Forum who gives us a quick update of the need to know headlines in today’s payments news.

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CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 214 Tom Shen, Malauzai Founder and Fintech OG

 Tom Shen is a fintech OG, one of the originals who got his start in the industry 40 years ago when it was still called just financial services.

He's had glittering successes.  He was EVP at Digital Insight when Intuit bought it for $1.33 billion in 2007. Earlier he founded Software Dynamics Inc. (SDI). More recently he founded mobile app developer Malauzai which was bought in 2018 by Finastra.

Now he is an active investor and a board member of five companies, including Sensibill and ZSuite, both of which have been featured on this podcast.

In this show Shen revisits his earlier days in fintech but - crucially - he spells out in detail what a fintech needs to know to work successfully with credit unions and also what a credit union executive needs to know to work successfully with fintechs.

His advice is sound, it's levelheaded and, importantly, it's rooted both in what worked in the past and what he sees working today.

Listen and you will hear pointed advice that says credit union execs today want fintech that delivers measurable and quick benefits. Talk about an 18 month build out and, guess what, that is an audience lost.

Know too that Shen was a guy who was working with credit unions literally decades before many fintech execs saw this as a good market. He tells what attracted him - and these are strengths that credit unions still have.

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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 211 How $130mil River City FCU Became a Small Business Lender

Talk about miracles.

River City FCU in San Antonio knew it wanted to make small business loans - many of its members owned and/or worked in small businesses - and you have to know how hard it is for any small business to snare a loan. Then up the degree of difficulty if the small business is minority owned (and River City's membership is majority Hispanic).

How can those typically small loans be profitably made?

And then the miracle happened.

Compliance Systems, a provider of compliance documentation tools, realized that CDFI credit unions - community development FIs - were looking for ways to get more involved in business lending.

Along the way Hawthorn River, a developer of community banking software, hopped into the action.

So did IMM, a develop of e signature and digital transaction tools.

For Jeff Ivey, CEO of River City FCU it was put up or shut up time and he did not blink. He was all in.

The exceptional deal sweetener - Compliance Systems, IMM, and Hawthorn River agreed to donate their work, both because it simply was a wonderful thing to do but also because they now have available a tool kit that will let them put into place small business lending at many small credit unions.

This sounds like a Christmas fable? Indeed. But it is a reality and in this podcast you will hear how it came together, how it is working out, and Ivey as well as executives from the three tech companies all offer perspectives.

Here's a link to a press release with all the details.

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

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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 212 Chris Doner CEO Access Softek on Why You Need a Robo-Advisor

 A machine just maybe can pick stocks better than a human - and just maybe credit unions can augment their investment services by offering a new robo-advisor service from longtime fintech Access Softek, a 36 year-old Berkeley CA based fintech that offers online and mobile banking and more to hundreds of FIs.

Now Access Softek founder and CEO Chris Doner wants to put a robo-advisor service as well as self-directed brokerage tools in the credit union investment toolkit.

The timing couldn't be better. With inflation galloping, cash in a savings account increasingly looks like a money losing proposition and, for sure, some members will be investigating shifting money out of savings accounts and into stocks - which often means shifting that cash out of the credit union and into another kind of institution.

That gets more perilous because many of those institutions already offer things that look like checking accounts.

Not only might member wallet share be lost it might come close to vanishing.

Sure, right now just a handful of credit unions offer robo-advisor services - but it's a trend that is catching on elsewhere.

Plus, many credit unions are scrambling to find new sources of fee income and robo-advisory tools plus tools for self-direct brokerage accounts may be just the ticket.

Even better, Doner's investment tools are based upon fees paid by the members who use them and those monies are split with the credit union.  The pricing is very favorable to the institutions that climb aboard.

In this podcast Doner tells about his investment tools for credit unions and he also disclosed why he has never sold his company.

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CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 2013 Evan Bush Statflo on Compliant Texting Tools for Credit Unions

 Your members text.

Especially your younger members but today, really, everybody texts.

That means your employees text too.

So why can't your employees text members with questions and offer them help. pointers, suggestions?

You say there would be compliance questions.

Meet Statflo, a company that specializes in one thing: compliant texting software and it also specializes in tools for credit unions.

Is it hard to get started with Statlo?

Listen to this podcast with Evan Bush, head of sales and partnerships at Staflo, who explains that in fact it is easy to get started using Statflo's tools and a credit union also gets to pick the pricing plan that works best for it.  How easy is that?

A Statflo special ingredient is that its texting is done by human beings, not AI, and those human beings work in your branches, using tools and techniques developed by Statflo to get maximal results from texting.

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 News Flash Pablo DeFilippi of Inclusiv on Their Deal with QCash

 Ask Pablo DeFilippi, an executive with Inclusiv, the trade group for CDFI credit unions, why they did a deal with QCash, the fintech birthed to facilitate making small dollar loans quickly to credit union members, without reference to credit scores, and his answer boils down to this: It's the CDFI mission.

Members have financial needs, many turn to very high interest alternatives such as payday loans. For many of them QCash is the better option.

QCash also is automated and the process happens online. It's also fast. Decisions are made within 60 seconds.

A member has a life event - a blown car water pump, maybe it's an urgent need for dental work, or perhaps it's that eviction if the landlord doesn't get a chunk of cash. When before a credit union might have had to turn that member away, now QCash gives the member an option.

It's perfect with Inclusiv.

You may remember you heard DeFilippi on this show before. You are right. Here is his 2020 episode.

And here's a link to a 2022 show with Seth Brickman, CEO of QCash.  

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 News Flash Chris Otey on H.R, 6889 The Credit Union Board Modernization Act

 Now the US Congress is weighing in on credit union boards and Chris Otey, an executive with CU 2.0 but importantly for this podcast, board chair at South Bay Credit Union in California, tells what he likes about the H. R. 6889, the Credit Union Board Modernization Act, which now has been voted out of committee and will come up for a vote in the full House.

The bill has bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

CUNA has indicated support. Ditto NAFCU. 

What would it do? It's narrowly focused legislation that would allow most credit union boards to meet six times annually rather than the currently mandated twelve. 

That's it.

But Otey is plain that as board chair he thinks this would be a very good move. He tells why in the podcast.

Remember to tell your member of Congress and US Senators how you feel about H.R. 6889.  

And, by the way, this podcast is a coming home for Otey.  He was the guest in the first podcast - click here to listen.  It's not exactly as big a landmark as the first Rolling Stones album but, for credit union geeks, it may rate right up there.

Listen up.