credit union

by Robert McGarvey

For years I have pondered a puzzle: why do financial institutions spend so much on cybersecurity and employ wonderfully smart and talented people – but the results are not as good as one would hope.

Frequently financial institutions simply are whipped by their criminal opponents.

Just look back on how DDOS – distributed denial of service – brought innumerable institutions to their knees a few years ago.  It took months for credit unions to get it together to repel the attack.

Then look at ATM jackpotting. New account opening fraud. ATM skimming. The list could go on and on but you get the message: criminals often outwit credit unions and banks and that is despite the money spent and the talent employed.

Why don’t credit unions gain the upperhand?

Hear the related podcast with Authentic8 CEO Scott Petry here.

A new report, sponsored by cybersecurity firm Authentic8, involves a survey of 163 financial services professionals, and it tackles just that question: why do financial services firms so often fall victim to cyberattacks?

Here’s a hint at the reason: “Financial firms have some of the best-funded IT departments of any industry, that’s no secret,” said Scott Petry, CEO of Authentic8. “What’s perplexing to me, with data breaches and privacy violations at an all-time high, is how deep the divide still runs between IT, compliance and legal professionals in many firms.”

The report’s title spells out the problem: “Surprising Disconnect Over Compliance and Secure Web Use at Financial Firms.”

Keep reading at CUInsight

Welcome to Up in Smoke, Part 4 – credit unions and weed.

Buckle up. Dan Mayfield, public affairs director at LeveragePoint, a strategic communications firm in Albuquerque NM, will be our guide in this podcast to the cannabis business in New Mexico. 

Cash, public safety, and a $130 million dollar annual business take. That’s legal marijuana in New Mexico — and right now credit unions are scrambling to help serve this market.

LeveragePoint has a ringside seat and that’s because it is wholly owned by the Credit Union Association of New Mexico.

You heard that right.

That also means it’s playing a key role in setting up the CU Cannabiz show in Chicago in April and Mayfield offers more details on that in this podcast.

Up in Smoke Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here.

Part 3 is a podcast with Paul Stull, CEO of the Credit Union Association of New Mexico.

What’s important here is that cannabis is a potentially huge market for credit unions. It has risks, sure.

But it has a grand upside.

Here all about all sides in this podcast.  It’s a fast ride.

Listen 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

Toke up – the CU2.0 Podcast is back with another look at cannabis and credit unions, a topic we last looked at a year ago in a two part podcast. Part 1 here, Part 2 here.

Welcome to Part 3, 2020 edition of Up in Smoke, credit union style.

Today’s guest is Paul Stull CEO of the Credit Union Association of New Mexico, which is sponsoring the Credit Union Cannabiz Conference, April 5-8 in Chicago.

What this is about is the business of banking cannabis companies, said Stull.  And he fervently believes that cannabis – so far an untouchable for the big national banks – is a prime opportunity for credit unions to build dynamic and profitable business account relationships that involve both deposits and lending.

And this is business that right now the national banks won’t take on.

About two in every three states presently has legal marijuana in some form (medical, recreational or both).

Said Stull: “Most credit unions are involved in banking marijuana money whether they know it or not.”

His argument: do this openly, consciously, charge accordingly and it’s a win win, for the credit union, also for the marijuana business.

In the podcast, Stull offers a deep dive into why cannabis banking also benefits local communities – meaning this is a solid credit union business direction.

The opportunities with cannabis for credit unions right now looks immense.

Stay tuned because in a few weeks another cannabis themed podcast will drop.

Listen 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

Want to grow your member base? Want to target particular kinds of members?

Content is your friend, says Shondell Varcianna, a financial services veteran who nowadays focuses on providing select financial institutions with finely targeted digital content – blog posts – for distribution via the credit union website, also social media.

Her driving point: content works when it is written to meet the specific needs of a targeted group.  It can’t be all things to all people.

She especially recommends financial education content.  Millennials, for instance, want info on home buying.  Give it to them and you just may get the mortgage.

The key: have a strategy about what groups you want and what you want to sell them. The content will follow.

This is an informative podcast about a topic that usually is treated superficially. This is a deeper dive and it’s worth it because this is how to supercharge member growth.

Listen 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

It just may be topic one in credit union c suites – how do we make more profitable loans?

Matt Johnner of BankLabs – a developer of cloud based technology solutions for financial institutions – has a suggestion: Go after lending to two of the country’s biggest industrial segments, agriculture and construction.

And fast track this by using your present member base to segue into commercial lending into those segments.

A good car loan experience for a farmer’s wife, or a home builder’s husband, just may lead to a 7 figure commercial loan – for the credit union that is thinking that way.

So Johnner likes the “law of attraction,” which essentially says that what we focus on comes into our life.

Start thinking on construction and ag loans and they just may happen for you.

His company also is a provider of mobile tools that automate lending and loan management and, he says, many lenders are still rooted in legacy technology (spreadsheets). A newcomer to the field who has the right technology in place just may start closing deals.

What will the regulator say? Johnner addresses that in this podcast.

He also talks about buying a community bank to accelerate success in commercial lending – but stresses there are other ways.

If you want more high profit loans this is a must podcast.

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

Passwords are broken. You know that.

But do you know call centers are heading that way?

Call centers are under attack by criminals. Smart criminals. And they are targeting credit unions.

Credit unions are responding by asking more members ever harder questions. Just one problem. As the questions get more obscure – what was the make of the second car you owned – more members give wrong answers.

Fraudsters incidentally often can perform quite well on these tests because they have amassed data via the dark web.

They probably know the name of that kindergarten teacher that you have forgotten.

Tough questions are no cure.

The better solution is to implement biometric authentication that eliminates the need for answering a series of obscure questions. Enter Illuma Labs which is focused on helping small and mid sized financial institutions – that means you, credit unions – implement passive voice recognition.

As for what passive recognition means it’s that it happens in the background, the member needs do nothing special. In a matter of quick seconds he/she is authenticated and you can get down to business.

That means quicker call times, lower costs, happier members and happier call center staff.

This podcast is a guided tour into how voice rec works, how to implement it quickly and at low costs, and why this is the 21st century solution to a lot of the fraud credit union call centers are experiencing.

Listen 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

Every day people – maybe thousands of them – are turned away by financial institutions, credit unions included.  These people, by necessity, utilize the periphery of financial services such as payday lenders and bill pay via pricey money orders.

It’s expensive to be poor.

Wouldn’t it be nice if credit unions could do more to help these people get back on a healthy financial path?

It could in fact be life changing.

CU2.0

Enter Cambio, an app that gamifies finance and, along the way, gives its users a debit card and also rewards them for their smart financial behaviors such as paying an electric bill on time.

Along the way, Cambio is working with the Illinois Credit Union League and Cambio founder Blesson Abraham said that he envisions significant roles for credit unions with Cambio.  Case in point: credit unions may want to get dibs on Cambio users that have successfully turned around their financial behavior.

Just that is exactly what Cambio is about: helping consumers change their behavior around money.

Many credit unions want to do more on that theme in their community.  So check out Cambio.

Listen to the podcast here.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available.

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

Joseph Cooper calls it “the justice gap” and what he is pinpointing is the avalanche of unfiled lawsuits and the unpursued legal matters that the middle class often just lets go untended.

The rich pay lawyers. The poor, in many cases, can access free legal assistance.  The middle class is out in the cold.

Enter Cooper’s Justice for Me, where he is creating a system that helps attorneys find clients, helps those clients borrow money to pay for their legal assistance, and just may also help credit unions add a powerful new loan product to their portfolio.

Wake up, smell the vanishing auto loan.  Legal loans just may be a great new product and it also is a product that aligns well with the core credit union mission of helping the middle class.

Justice for Me avoids most criminal law, will not do contingency fee cases (personal injury), but there are many, many other matters such as wills, adoptions, divorces, contract law, bill disputes and much more.

Lawyers need the work – we are over lawyered these days – but they also want to be paid.  Enter Justice for Me.

It’s a novel idea. And it’s worth a listen here.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available.

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

The tagline of the website Edmit says a lot: Treat college like an investment.

Four years at Arizona State – tuition, room, board – will run over $110,000. 

Four years at MIT will run over $300,000.

Big money is at stake and this is why so many students graduate with immense debt loads. The average approaches $40,000.

That’s a lot of dough and it’s a huge burden.

Enter Edmit, which aims to show a student and his/her family the *real* cost of a college and that’s a factor of this school, its financial resources, this student, and the family’s financial resources. A lot of variables come into play.

But the right college choice can produce a manageable debt load. Often the school with the best package for this student isn’t the one that seems obvious.

Seth Brecher, head of partnerships and customer success at Edmit, tells us how the program works.

He also tells about the special relationships Edmit forms with participating credit unions, and he says helping families plan their higher education expenses is a good way to strengthen relationships.

Listen here.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available.

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

Quick, how does a company get named Pinkaloo?

Meet Gideon Taub, CEO of Pinkaloo, a company focused on modernizing charitable giving for the 99% – that means us – and now it also is helping credit unions find a way to claim a central place in guiding members to more effective giving.

With Pinkaloo, a use can set up a budget for giving, access tools to help find organizations of particular interest, get gifts sorted for tax purposes, and – this is huge – do research without falling victim to the insecurity of some charity websites.

It’s win-win-win, for the member, the credit union, the charities.

Pinkaloo is about bringing efficiencies to something that for many of us has been haphazard.

Note: Pinkaloo does not require core access.

Also note: credit unions may find that Pinkaloo helps them know much better what their members want to support and this may help steer credit union charitable giving in a much more precise direction. Just sayin’.

Listen here

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available.

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