By Robert McGarvey

 

For Credit Union 2.0

 

“We are not moving fast enough. We need to move 2x or 4x faster,” said John Janclaes, CEO of the $1 billion Partners Federal Credit Union headquartered in Burbank, CA.

In a wide ranging interview, Janclaes revealed exactly why he had put the credit union on what he describes as a journey of digital transformation – and he also talked about progress made.

You might think Partners is a blessed credit union. It has enough assets to compete and it has strong SEG ties – it essentially is the Disney credit union and pulls membership from the many Disney companies, from the theme parks to movies and ESPN.  It also has two very different geographical hubs – southern California and Orlando, FL. It has a lot going for it.

But three or four years ago, Janclaes looked at the competitive landscape and he had a worrisome thought: “Credit unions are in the crosshairs,” he said. He elaborated that the industry faces ever smarter, tougher competition from big banks and also fintechs and companies like Amazon.  “We need to keep up with that level of competition.”

Not that many decades ago, credit unions, he said, were a well balanced three legged stool that offered better rates, better service, and better convenience because many members could bank at work.

And then that happy bubble burst as consumers – increasingly – have demanded digital banking and many credit unions have faltered in the transformation from high personal touch and community based institutions.

“We recognized we need to keep changing to remain relevant to our members,” said Janclaes.

Fueling his thinking was a CO-OP funded study on digital transformation that found, in a survey of 221 credit union leaders, 88% said digital transformation is “extremely or quite important.”  And about half the respondents acknowledged their digital experience is “inferior” to top brands like Google and Apple.

Janclaes wanted more for Partners, he wanted to offer members a digital experience that in fact rivaled the best of breed because – face it – those are benchmarks members use to grade what they get from their financial services providers.

A big step was that he went outside to Kony and also the Boston Consulting Group to help Partners in its journey. “We wanted to work with trusted partners who are industry leaders,” said Janclaes.

“We have de-emphasized inhouse tech innovation,” said Janclaes and that is because – looked at frankly – few credit unions have the scale and environment to attract the top tech talent that is needed to create a thriving 21st century institution. “We are picking where we can win.”

What especially attracted him to Kony – which has done the bulk of the heavy digital lifting for Partners – is that it had a limited credit union background and also had had successes in very different industries such as retail and energy.

“We did not want a credit union incumbent with a credit union mentality,” said Janclaes.

Read that sentence again.  Credit union management orthodoxy is to vet potential vendors based on their resumes of past credit union hits.  

But Janclaes turned this thinking upside down.

He elaborated that “we are getting better at picking strategic partners.”

He also has taken an increasingly active role. “Ten years ago I was not involved with our tech partners. Now I am. I talk regularly with their CEOs.”

He said he had full support from his board which, he explained, is composed of Disney executives.

“Our sponsor sees us a value for the company and its cast members,” said Janclaes.

A challenge, he added, is coordinating the new digital credit union with the traditional brick and mortar credit union  He indicated that every measure says that in fact is happening as Partners has committed to offering an omnichannel presence that lets members pick how they want to interact. Most tasks – from account opening to joining the credit union – now can be done via any channel and that, believes Janclaes, is the future of credit unions that aim to thrive tomorrow.

Along the way, Janclaes has recognized that the traditional credit union way of updating digital functions via an annual or semi-annual upgrade just doesn’t work today. “We need to do this much faster, 3x, 4x.  We have started with 2x – that’s the business problem now in front of us.”

“We want to make incremental improvements at a rapid pace,” said Janclaes.

This, he said, represents a massive “mindset shift” in credit unions that, traditionally, have aimed for perfection and that has taken time.

Today calls for faster and that means, often, perfection won’t be there.

But what happens will nonetheless be good enough.

That of course is how all tech companies think.

“Our members are already ahead of us in thinking that way,” said Janclaes.

And now Janclaes is determined to bring Partners to that mindset too.

 

An 11 minute video on the Partners digital transformation is here.  It’s worth a view by any credit union manager, or board member, contemplating the next steps in their institution’s digital journey because that has become a ride no one can refuse.

 

What’s your CEO story? This column is looking for credit union CEOs – institutions may be any size – to share their transformation story.  Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com

 

Should wearables be on your tech radar in 2018? – CUInsight http://bit.ly/2G7oq5c

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

For CU 2.0

 

New research out of Javelin, sponsored by identity specialist Jumio, makes plain multiple facts and the central one is that digital banking rules and it does so across generations.  It’s not just a Millennial thing anymore.

Another key takeaway: most financial institutions – eyes on you – stumble in many key places, particularly in deploying mobile banking. This is eroding member loyalty: they will sometimes simply flee to another institution.

And security concerns continue to be a bother for many users, according to the Javelin research. Despite the fact that generally a mobile banking session over a cellular network is much more secure than one over an online network.  No matter. A lot of users remain very worried about safety and digital banking and the smart institutions are addressing these fears.

What all this means is that mobile banking – increasingly the channel that matters in banking – is where credit unions have to double down on efforts to compete with the money center banks and the fintechs that continue to nibble at the user base of smaller, legacy institutions (talking about you, Amazon).  

Al Pascual, SVP, Research Director and Head of Fraud & Security at Javelin Research elaborated: “To capitalize on the growing demand for mobile banking as millennials grow in spending power, financial institutions must simplify user experience and address ongoing concerns around security and fraud.”

Dive deeper into the report and the results can surprise.  For instance, although 76% of Millennials now regularly use digital banking, 77% of Boomers do – and, yep, that says Boomers have greater acceptance of the channel.

But Millennials are way ahead with mobile banking. 62% use it monthly, compared to 34% of Boomers.  Also, claimed Jumio, “Millennials report stronger satisfaction with nearly all aspects of mobile banking, compared to Generation X and Baby Boomers.”

Millennials definitely have fewer gripes about mobile banking.  25% of them express concerns with the channel, compared to 33% of Gen X and 35% of Boomers. What kinds of concerns? 28% grumble about “hidden fees,” while 53% complain about ease of use.

The study uncovered valuable findings when it focused on abandonment issues – why do we just close out when midway into a task in a digital banking session?  36% said they did so because “the process [was] taking too long.” 20% complained about authentication “being too time consuming.”

Waste a consumer’s time – and the consumer is the judge of this, not a cautious credit union manager – and they will blow you off.  Just that fast.

Here’s the kick in the head: “One-third of consumers respond negatively to their FI after abandoning a mobile banking activity,” reported Jumio. Understand: 7% decided to open an account at another financial institution.  And 13% shared their grumble about the experience with family and friends.

That’s word of mouth you don’t need.

In this regard, the Javelin research shows that account opening tools must cater to Millennials, mainly because they are the leading cohort when it comes to adding new accounts and services. Their chief complaint: it takes too long.  The antidote: speed it up.

And make it easy to complete the tasks on a mobile device. That is becoming a crucial battleground.

When it comes to authentication, Millennials in particular prefer biometrics, especially eye scans and facial recognition, according to the Javelin data.  Farther down the list are legacy modes such as QR codes. Very probably institutions that want to stay on the cutting edge of Millennial acceptance need to roll out multiple biometric modalities.

Another, key piece of advice from the research is: “Put security first (and make sure your customers know it).”  

“But… weave security into the customer experience in smooth, fast, intuitive ways.”

Don’t make security into hurdles members have to jump – how many routinely forget passwords? – but do let members know that security protocols are always there, always protecting them. They want that reassurance even if they don’t want the hassles of dealing with in your face security challenges (what street did your father live on at age 6?).  

Sift through the Javelin findings and there is much to cheer credit union leaders. There is no way they can compete with money center banks in terms of branches – but they don’t need to.  What a credit union needs is top grade digital experiences, online and mobile, that include easy account opening and build in seamless security that will protect members.

None of that is easy.

But it all is doable at credit unions that embrace the digital mandate.

 

How many hotel loyalty programs do you belong to?  Probably lots. Personally I have no idea because I take none of them very seriously.  I join because I usually get free (bad) WiFi and maybe a complimentary drink (which I just about never drink).  It takes a couple minutes to sign up and, once I’ve done that, I usually forget I’ve joined. I know I do belong because I get many emails from Hilton, Hyatt, et. al. and although I don’t open them, they do serve as reminders that I belong.

Maybe I am so casual about hotel loyalty because, at least in recent years, the majority of my hotel stays have been booked by clients who are using their preferred provider deals to score the best prices.  Or I am attending big meetings where the organizer made its deal. I don’t usually have much choice and, frankly, I haven’t much cared either. Hotel rooms are fungible in my calculus. The upshot is that I stay at lots of places and have no real loyalty points cache anywhere.

And I haven’t cared.

But the new Fans of M. O. – via Mandarin Oriental – has won my favorable interest.  And its rewards do not include free hotel rooms.

Repeat: no free stays.

That’s fine by me.  When I am traveling enough to win free stays in a loyalty program usually the last thing I want is another hotel stay – and, yeah, I know most conventional programs let members swap points for stuff like fitness trackers, tablet computers, and phones but I already have the gear I want.

What else you don’t get in the M.O. program is status. At least for now, there are no silver, gold, platinum type levels. At least not in the program. But you can bet that Mandarin’s data system tracks its best spenders and already knows who has the status that matters even if there’s no formal declaration. That’s obvious. Talk to any GM in a large group and he will tell you he gets regular updates of arrivals of heavy hitters and he is expected to act accordingly.

Mandarin, I’d bet, does likewise.

What do certified Mandarin fans get? It starts with free WiFi and an “amenity.” Nothing to applaud there. Nothing unusual. Table stakes really.

What is fun about Fans of M.O. is that members get to pick two amenities from a list of 8: Early check in (as early as noon); Late check out (as late as 4 p.m.); daily breakfast; dining or spa credit; room upgrade; streaming WiFi; celebratory treat; or pressing services.

Knowing me, I’d just about always go for the fast WFi and the free breakfast – but if my packing had failed, the free pressing definitely could be a winner and of course, depending upon circumstances, late checkout or early check in might thrill me.  That is, I like the idea of tailoring my choices to the particular trip.  You don’t have to pick two and live by them forever.

Your trousers got soaked in a storm and now you want to swap out a free breakfast for pressing? Maybe you in fact can: “To change your benefits after booking, please contact the hotel to confirm availability,” advised Mandarin.

The only hitch: bookings have to be online.  But that’s no big deal for most of us. I can’t remember the last time I booked a hotel room anywhere except online.

Mandarin also notes there may be some variation in available amenities depending upon the specific property and dates: “Benefits vary according to hotel and date, but we assure you will always have a selection of benefits to choose from.”

Of course bookings also have to be via Mandarin, not third parties, which is a plus for Mandarin – it may actually have figured out with this program how to thwart the rise of OTAs – but again no big deal for me and probably not for you.  I sometimes have used OTAs to book hotel rooms but am not wedded to doing it that way. Directly with the hotel is fine by me, especially if there’s a perk (and a vague promise about “the lowest rates” really doesn’t do it – sorry Marriott, Hilton, et. al.). Mandarin actually is offering things I want.

Press coverage of the Fans of M.O. so far is largely positive.

Want to sign up? Go here.  It took me about two minutes to sign up. It’s fast and unintrusive.

If nothing else, I hope this program triggers a reinvention of the big hotel groups’ programs – which have always seemed plain vanilla, bland and thoughtless to me.

But I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

For Credit Union 2.0

 

Rob Taylor, CEO of Idaho State Credit Union in Pocatello, Idaho, wants you to know his enemies aren’t big banks – it’s other credit unions.

That’s the provocative point of an op-ed he recently penned for American Banker.

I doubt Taylor will soon get a congratulation bouquet from CUNA, but he just may have a point that many of us ignore the reality that credit unions today are arch competitors with each other.

Wrote Taylor: “The problem with our movement is most of us have been indoctrinated to believe our common enemy are bankers… when in fact the real threat to our future lies within our own industry.”

Believe this: Chase does not care if you thrive.  No big bank does.  In fact big banks are glad credit unions exist because it lets them say that they welcome small, local institutions. When credit unions move into underserved neighborhoods, probably big banks break out the private reserve brandy to toast their bravery because those banks do not want to be pressured to move back into urban and rural communities they have abandoned. If credit unions are serving those people, hoorah! And pass the brandy.

Sure, community banks – in many cases – actively dislike credit unions and vice versa but they are both squabbling over table scraps that have fallen to the floor.

While the big banks get bigger.

Back up a step. What’s the most competitive vertical in the credit union business? The clear winner are the military themed credit unions and in that sector there are two of the nation’s very biggest credit unions. I count four in the top 20.  But a few years ago I tried, and failed, to get on the record sources to talk about competition amongst military credit unions for a proposed story for Credit Union Times. The official line is that they don’t compete.

Oorah.

Maybe they even believe it. But myth it is.

Wrote Taylor: “[S]ince HR 1151 was signed into law by President Clinton in 1998, large, multiple common bond credit unions have continued to get larger by expanding their fields of membership, sometimes overlapping in predatory ways to the detriment to smaller credit unions that have stayed true to their original fields of membership.”

Years ago, FOMs were well defined and narrow. A credit union served only New York Times employees, or maybe only employees of AT&T.  I personally belong to that former AT&T credit union – Affinity Federal – and its field of membership is far broader than it once was. Indeed, Affinity on its website headlines: “Almost anyone can join.” That’s because dozens of organizations are in its FOM and if that’s not good enough, Affinity notes: “Don’t see your organization? No worries! You can become a member of the New Jersey Coalition for Financial Education by making a $5 donation when you fill out your online application.”

I’m not dissing Affinity. I’m a happy member. But the broadening of FOMs leads – pretty much instantly – to competition among credit unions for those among us who are fans of the credit union model.  

In Arizona, where I now live, Desert Financial – nee Desert Schools – proclaims that anyone who lives, works, worships, or goes to school in Maricopa, Gila, or Pinal counties can join. Maricopa – Phoenix – has around 4 million people, more than half the state’s total population. That credit union is in sharp competition with every other credit union in Phoenix and that is fact.  

Back to Taylor.  He wrote that his institution just does not compete with Idaho’s biggest banks. As far as competition with credit unions, it’s a different story. Taylor elaborated: “The largest bank headquartered in… Idaho holds $1.3 billion in assets, which is less than half the size of the largest credit union based here. This bank has never been in direct competition with my credit union for consumer loans or deposits, even though we have branches in the same cities.”

He went on: “However, every day we compete vigorously with the aforementioned credit union for consumer deposits and loans from overlapping members.”

Then Taylor tossed out his spitball: “Now, here is where it’s going to get ugly for me and where I lose friends. I agree with Sen. Hatch that many larger credit unions operate in the same manner as taxable banks, and I believe it’s time for them to convert to bank charters and be taxed like the ‘big boys,’ because the credit union movement doesn’t need them. We stopped being a movement and became an industry when HR 1151 was signed into law. “

Wow.

Agree with Taylor or not, he deserves a round of applause. He has put on the table the topic nobody wants to discuss. Do credit unions compete with each other? Of course they do. Is this hurting small credit unions? Of course it does.

Discussing just these topics needs to happen and soon. Because just maybe we have seen the enemy and he is us.

 

By Robert McGarvey

For Credit Union 2.0

 

The press release headline had me at go: “D3 Banking Technology Survey Finds More than Two-Thirds of American Digital Banking Users are Frust.”

Nah, I didn’t know what “frust” means either.  The Internet tells me a secondary slang meaning is frustrated.  

And, you bet, I too am frustrated with credit union mobile and online banking – and I’m not alone, per D3, and that should definitely worry credit union execs.

I have accounts at two credit unions. Digital products at both are inferior to Chase, where I also have an account.  If I could have only one account – and if I weren’t a big believer in the credit union movement – it would be with Chase.  I hate to say that. But it’s true and, thankfully, I am not limited to just one account.

Chase is forever improving its digital products. My credit unions aren’t (and, yes, I know they are locked into their vendors’ upgrade cycles – but why accept that?).  

Five years ago just having mobile banking was good enough.  20 years ago just having online banking, however feeble, was cause for a celebratory press release. In 2018 that definitely is not enough.

Not even close.

D3 proves that with its Harris poll that surveyed 1600 digital banking users (who had used it in the past 12 months) and they were quick to vent. Two in three – 68% – expressed frustration with their digital banking experience.

Count me among them. Yesterday I logged in to change the PIN of my debit card.  No can do in my credit union’s mobile banking app.  I eventually called an automated line and accomplished the task and how 1985 is that?

Why can’t I do a simple, mechanical task like changing a PIN on a mobile phone – and, really, do you think call centers do a better job of screening out fraudsters? Ask Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen about that.  

Nor is there evidence to suggest doing this via online or mobile banking is inherently riskier than via a telephone call.

So why can’t I do it?

A bottomline reality is that in 2018 an increasing number of consumers want – indeed demand – that their mobile banking app and online banking let them do anything they could do in a branch visit.

D3/Harris did find that there are age differences in expectations about mobile banking – but the differences aren’t as big as you might have hoped for. Said D3: “The survey revealed that digital banking users ages 18-34 are more likely than those ages 55+ to be frustrated with their digital banking experience, as 73% of the younger group indicated that they have been frustrated with their digital banking experience over the past year, compared to only 61% of adults ages 55+.”

Even tho credit union members skew older, it is safe to assume 6 in 10 of them are dissatisfied with their mobile banking experience.

For sure, too, members demand a feature rich digital banking experience: “The survey also found that more than half of digital banking users feel it is important for financial institutions to provide mobile deposit (70%), P2P services (66%) and mobile account opening (51%) as part of their digital banking offerings,” relayed D3.

Here’s the frightening kicker: “32% of digital banking users report that they are willing to leave their current bank or credit union for a better digital experience.”

That is blunt: one in three members who use digital services say they just may shift financial institutions to get better services.

Mark Vipond, CEO of D3, observed that that’s the real issue here is “the number of American digital banking users – 32 percent as found in our survey – who are willing to leave their current banking relationship for a better digital experience. As new types of technology continue to be introduced, financial institutions are going to need a strategy built on technology that allows them to innovate and introduce new features and functionality faster than they have to date.”

That’s the reality. Today consumers benchmark your app and website against Amazon, Netflix, Google and the other top digital services – and, sadly, at all but a handful of financial institutions the digital products are mediocre at best.

What’s the solution: commit, today, to improving your digital offerings just about daily, certainly weekly.  Word of advice: smart credit unions are committing to continuous improvement of their digital offerings.  The era of a once or twice a year update is over.  

The path to credit union extinction is paved with complacency.

Particularly with Millennials, credit unions have key positive attributes – they are local, they are community-minded, they generally are intimate scale, and they aren’t “big business.” All good. But will Millennials suffer a poor digital experience to do business with a credit union with bad online and mobile offerings?

Most credit unions seem to be betting that indeed Millennials will.

I don’t think they will.

Do you?

 

 

I know the feeling. When a trip looms usually it just seems simpler to make all required reservations in the same burst of activity, typically around two weeks out to get better airline fares. While I am at that, I’ll book a rental car (rarely nowadays in point of fact), make restaurant reservations, and of course book a hotel room.  But that last move may be a sure money loser.

That’s news from Concur, the travel management company, which said its analysis of data showed that a majority of hotel rooms are booked in the 15 – 30+ day window (a staggering 20% are booked more than 30 days out) – and yet, according to Phocuswire reporting, “during the 8-14 day period, most hotels start discounting heavily ahead of the stay date. This can often be to the tune of a 20% fall in the starting price for a property.”

Read that again. It says that waiting to book a room until shortly  before a trip can produce savings of perhaps 20% on the room rate.

Remember, at every hotel “revenue management” is the new Holy Grail but buttonhole most senior execs and off the record they will confide that their “competitors” suck at revenue management and that’s understandable because it’s a data science skill that requires serious analytical chops.  Airlines were the first to master revenue management, usually called yield in that trade. But they threw sophisticated computers and reasonably smart data scientists at a multi million dollar problem. They got results. Meaning they maximize the amount of money they pull out of every seat.

Few hotels have that sophisticated tech gear, or the brainy data scientists, and therefore revenue management in hotels is, shall we say, more informal.

Ten days out and there are way too many rooms empty and what do hotel managers do? Panic. And slash prices, obviously.

And so they do, said Concurs.

Note: these Concur data pertain to Europe, Middle East, and Africa – but you can be sure the same facts hold in the United States.

Book a hotel room for $250 20 days out and you wasted $50 plus room tax on the $50.

Booking early also leaves you more vulnerable to paying cancellation fee penalties – now in force at Marriott (Starwood), Hilton, Intercontinental and more properties.  To me, a traveler who came of age in the era of free same day cancellations (up until 4 p.m. at most hotels), the prospect of paying a night’s rate as a penalty for cancelling with less than 48 hours notice is horrifying.  So I have advised staying aware of the reality that very, very few hotels ever sell out and, therefore, book as late as your stomach allows you (the day before travel is about right, although I have booked on the morning of travel).  You’ll never pay an early cancellation fee.

This Concur rate data adds more fuel to the book a hotel room late position.

Particularly because you will save big money on the room rate.

Concur executive Chris Baker, in a blog post that is rich in data, showed especially dramatic savings for late bookers of high end hotels in Frankfurt and Paris.

Baker also noted that there are real differences in discounting from country to country.  “All three countries” – UK, France, Germany – “then experience a significant drop [in rates] between 0–3 days. However, prices in Germany are only 13 percent below the median whereas the U.K. sees a larger drop to -26 percent. Germany certainly holds truer when it comes to price fluctuation, but travellers and travel managers would do well to book later there in comparison to France and the UK.”

If you wait too long to book a room won’t you wind up sleeping on a park bench? Nope. Definitely unlikely.

Very few hotels ever are fully booked except during truly special events – the Super Bowl or the NCAA Final Four and a few blockbuster conventions.  Waiting until late to book is not that risky.

I am looking at 4:15 pm in Manhattan and tonight I see rooms at the five diamond Pierre ($338 on HotelTonight) and the Park Central near Central Park is $99. HotelTonight has many more Manhattan hotels to choose among.

In Washington DC – where there’s a large credit union convention this week  (GAC) – the Watergate is $299 and a one bedroom suite is $349.  The Kimpton Mason & Rook is $299.  The Washington Plaza, on Hotels.com, is asking $222 and that Thomas Circle place is my personal fave. Again, a lot more hotels are in HotelTonight. You would not sleep in Dupont Circle tonight if you were now arriving without a hotel reservation tonight. There is vast availability.

Bottomline: Book late. Very late. Save money on the room while ducking those hideous cancellation fees. It’s win-win for you.

 

 

 

by Robert McGarvey

 

The first batch of Alexa hotel skills is showing up in the Amazon library and the blunt question is: are they worth your time and bandwidth to download?

I am a big Alexa fan – there are three in my apartment, all different models – and have urged its adoption in everything from hospitality to banking.  Sure, I know the privacy concerns and I still say the cure is when you are having a convo you want to stay secret – really secret – unplug Alexa.  Poof, end of concerns.  I have never done that so assume what you will about my life.

In hotels I am very excited about the possibility that, soon, we will get answers not by calling the front desk or thumbing through an often out of date and neglected and incomplete hotel guest services guide, but by asking Alexa.

Alexa, can I have more towels? Will you turn down the room temperature three degrees? Alexa, set a wakeup call for 6 a.m.

At home I use Alexa – and also Google Home (Siri is seriously bad, imo; I never use it anymore) – to give me lots of info (what’s the weather? Will it rain today?) and also to perform simple tasks (turn on the living room light) and play music. I can also ask for BBC news briefs.

There are reasons to be optimistic about voice controls in hotel rooms. Lots of big players – Marriott included – have pilots. At least one third party developer – Volara – has taken big steps in making Alexa real and useful in hotel rooms.

So I was excited to see that at least some hotels now have their own Alexa skills – meaning you go to an Amazon page, click on the skill and the enable button and suddenly you have controls at a hotel.

Or don’t you?

This Hotel Business story really awoke my interest: Red Roof Intros Amazon Alexa Skills Technology.  

What’s important is that it is next gen.  It puts the Alexa hotel skill not only in the hotel room, but in your home and office.  For frequent guests at a particular chain or property, this could be a game changer.

Of course I immediately enabled the skill and got busy asking Alexa questions.

The Red Roof skill did not perform well, by my scoring.  The problem: a limited set of abilities.

I asked where the nearest Red Roof was. It told me to log into the website.

I asked how many locations Red Roof has. It told me over 500, then made a silly joke (“they all are special to me and call me on my birthday”)  It finished by telling me – you guessed it – to go to the website “to find an inn.”

The Hotel Business piece flagged this particular skill, do you have any deals?  So I tried that. It told me to go to the website.

What did Red Roof hope to accomplish with this Alexa skill? Hotel Business has the answer: “As consumers continue to rely more heavily on technology in their daily routines at home, we created the Red Roof skill for Amazon Alexa in the spirit of added convenience and ability to deliver important, decision-driving information directly to current and future guests,” said Kevin Scholl, director of digital marketing and partnerships, Red Roof. “Our technology is living and we’ll continue to add information to best support users based on consumer demand and aim to provide booking capabilities in the future.”

We’ll see about that last bit because the Red Roof skill really, really needs new powers.  It’s a rather lame skill right now.

A more fun Alexa skill is Lake View Country House – in Windmere, England, Wordsworth country. Ask how to get to the house – it even gives bus numbers from a nearby train station! It will tell you what room availability is on a particular date. It will not tell you prices, however, and neither will it accept bookings via Alexa.  But for a one-off country house in the Lake District, it’s a fun skill.

There really aren’t hotel skills much of use on the Alexa skills page.

It’s a better verdict for Flight Finders.

There you’ll find Kayak, United, Korean Air, Heathrow, Philadelphia Airport, and a few more.  They all have some uses.

Also with Alexa skills are travel advice company Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a growing number of concierge type services, and lots of information based skills.

Bottomline: Alexa is getting more robust. Can you truly plan and book a business trip using only it? Not now.  But soon.  Very soon.

Skills have to become much more powerful. But they will. They will.

How cool is that?

But I’m a sucker for anything that lets me dodge calling the front desk.  How about you?

By Robert McGarvey

 

For Credit Union 2.0

When it comes to account openings, credit unions increasingly find themselves caught between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis, the fancy Greek mythology way to say between a rock and a hard place. In either direction lies complete devastation.

That’s because on one side, where credit union account opening barriers are high to prevent bogus accounts opened by crooks, big banks clean up by opening a lot more accounts.  Credit unions too often simply drive new business away.

On the other hand, when barriers are lowered, sometimes criminals pile on – like sharks sensing blood in troubled waters – and they get busy defrauding a credit union.

Indications are plentiful that criminals, increasingly, are honing in on account opening fraud. A lot of their activity is shifting into that realm.  

Credit unions, seeing that data, have doubled down on erecting barriers to fraud at account opening.

The upshots: potential members are frustrated when account opening barriers are too high and credit unions, too, are frustrated because they know they aren’t opening enough accounts.

There is a big data driven escape hatch that can save credit unions. But lots remain clueless.

They will suffer because what they are presently doing just isn’t current grade.

Personally, I know about the difficulties involved in opening a new account. It took me some weeks, of sheer tedious frustration, to open a new account at a credit union two blocks from my house in Phoenix.  If I hadn’t been a credit union fan, and if I weren’t something of a student of credit union practices, I would have walked long before I succeeded in opening the account.  Always it seemed another “proof” was required.  

My drivers license had a different address than my present address and that was the hitch.

But five years earlier, soon after I had moved to Arizona, I had opened an account at Chase with a driver’s license from another state and, in the bargain, Chase gave me a check for $300, just for opening a checking account.  The process was accomplished online. It took a couple days, max.

With the credit union, I eventually surrendered and visited the branch.  How 20th century. I did get the account open but the process left a bad taste of obsolescence.

Think about that. Chase paid me to open an account, the credit union inflicted aggravations upon me to do so.

Where will most potential customers wind up?

By now you may be saying, what should the credit union have done differently? What could it have done differently given government insistence on KYC?

Lots.

It could start by joining the 21st century.

Start by reading a very short ebook from Feedzai, a data science company with roots back to Carnegie Mellon University.  

It puts forth a lot of frightening ideas. For instance: criminals, increasingly, are opening crooked accounts but leaving them sleeping for some time – typically until a financial institution has stopped watching it as a worrisome new account. Think about that sophistication. The FI eyeballs a new account, crooks discover that, so they wait out the FI.

It gets worse.

Criminals know financial institutions love rules and so they learn them, they obey them – until the FI’s anxieties pass. Then they strike.

Machine learning can still give a credit union the edge, said Feedzai. “Banks can begin to keep pace with fraudsters with hypergranular, continuously updated profiles that pinpoint and connect fraud signals. There can be thousands of fraud indicators that alone aren’t enough to make a conclusive decision of fraud, but which a machine can thread into a complete view and an accurate decision.”

What Feedzai is using is very big data – but that’s how to thwart crooks. It’s found oddities that correlate with criminality.  For instance:  “Feedzai has found that devices with high battery power are correlated with high fraud. Fraud is three to four percentage points above the average fraud rate when emails have two to four consecutive digits. Certain email domains are more correlated with fraud behavior, including public domains. And when a device name is unknown or null, the likelihood of fraud is 78%.”

Machines can also hunt for data across multiple channels to support, or deny, a new account opening.  In a matter of minutes, a machine can make a thin file fat and take a lot of worry out of an account opening.

In assessing a new account, a smart machine looks at both traditional sources (credit bureaus for instance) but also non traditional sources such as social media channels.  A full picture results, quickly.

That’s the thing. Many institutions continue to use only a small, limited data set in opening new accounts. Smart, contemporary institutions are using an array of 21st century data and, despite the volume, it is swiftly processed when machines do the heavy lifting.

How does this work in practice? Feedzai pointed to a case study – involving a large bank – where the institution had been approving only 40% of new account applications. With machine learning and big data on the case, it upped that number by 74% – with no increase in fraud. None. And the process itself was streamlined.

Can you say similar about your account onboarding?  Talk with any of a growing number of companies such as Feedzai that are targeting account opening fraud and how to do the screening better, faster and smarter. Many companies – mainly small, very tech in orientation – are now in this space. Talk with a few.

If you can’t open accounts as well as big competitors, you won’t long stay in business.

Put the machines on your side and stay in the game.

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

First there was the peacock – a purported emotional support animal rejected by United Airlines.  Then there was the emotional support hamster, supposedly flushed down the toilet at the direction of Spirit Airlines crew.  

Question: what gives with all the “emotional support” animals?

Question: Do they belong on flights?

Somehow – suddenly – this topic has become one of travel’s hottest buttons. There are many who say the animals have no place on the plane. There are others who insist depriving them of their animal is cruelty.

Heated words get tossed around.

Sometimes passengers loudly squabble and punches are threatened.  

Where do you stand?

Personally, I can’t see a business traveler traveling with an emotional support animal – if I’m wrong about that, tell me in the comments – but we are all nonetheless impacted by this.

Know this: emotional support animals are not protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), landmark legislation signed into law by George H. Bush. Service animals are but service animals – dogs primarily – “must be trained to take a specific action when needed to assist the person with a disability. For example, a person with diabetes may have a dog that is trained to alert him when his blood sugar reaches high or low levels. A person with depression may have a dog that is trained to remind her to take her medication. Or, a person who has epilepsy may have a dog that is trained to detect the onset of a seizure and then help the person remain safe during the seizure.”

The US Justice Department specifically pointed out that emotional support animals are not service animals. “Because they have not been trained to perform a specific job or task, they do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.”

It added: “some State or local governments have laws that allow people to take emotional support animals into public places.  You may check with your State and local government agencies to find out about these laws.”

The flap on airlines is not about service dogs – they have a clearcut right to accompany their owners aboard –  it’s about emotional support animals, where, a kind of wild west rules and just about anything can be claimed to be an emotional support beast.  

Third question: do you want to bring Rover on your next flight?  Dress the part. Amazon sells a nifty Emotional Support Dog Harness for $32.95. It even comes in XL; go ahead, bring that mastiff!

Up until now, it has been relatively easy to bring an emotional support animal on board. That is changing.  Effective March 1, United, for instance, will require documentation for accepting on board an emotional support animal.  The carrier elaborated: “In addition to providing a letter from a licensed medical/mental health professional, customers will need to provide a veterinary health form documenting the health and vaccination records for the animal as well as confirming that the animal has been trained to behave properly in a public setting.”

United said it carried 76,000 emotional support animals in 2017. That was up a staggering 77% from the year before.

Delta requires that paperwork be filed 48 hours before flying with an emotional support animal.  

Pretty much all carriers can be expected to tighten the rules for emotional support animals.

Delta, by the way, has said it carries 700 emotional support animals daily and the beasts, it said, are wandering cabins, biting passengers, and relieving themselves wherever.

If you think some airplanes have become aviation equivalents of Noah’s ark, you’re not entirely wrong. Snakes, ducks, even ferrets have been brought aboard as “emotional support” animals. Squirrels and rats, too.

Airlines had been hoping the federal government would step in and regulate emotional support animals but that isn’t happening. A federal ACCESS Advisory Committee has been unable to agree on rules governing emotional support animals.  The Dept. of Transportation has said it intends to draft its own regulations but there’s no sign of them.  

So now the airlines are seeking to step into this void.

Given airline past behavior it is impossible to see any of this going smoothly, or even rationally.  That’s just not how they work.

If you want to bring an emotional support animal on board, be sure to have your paperwork in order and talk early and often with the carrier before takeoff. Rules are in flux. Don’t get caught in the middle.

If you are on the plane to do business and the idea of sharing your row with a python makes you nervous, speak up. Tell the flight attendant.  Tell the python’s owner.  Say Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer. 

But, right now, probably nobody is going to be entirely happy when it comes to emotional support animals. Not those who want to bring them or those who want them banned.  

I don’t blame you if you want emotional rescue – but don’t you know promises were never made to keep?