Podcast

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

“We are facing a global talent shortage,” said Tommy Marshall, executive director of the new Georgia Fintech Academy, by way of an an answer to the question: why was your organization formed.

It’s an ambitious undertaking. The idea is to pull together resources from 26 Georgia public universities – including Georgia Tech, Georgia State, and Georgia Southern – and to offer students the opportunity to earn a degree focused on fintech.

Right now, the emphasis is on a bachelors degree program but there are plans for an advanced degree as well as professional development courses.

Understand this: Georgia has gotten a jump on other states. Nowhere else is there such a sweeping program that draws upon a wide range of institutions, all joining together to produce grads with degrees that will help them get good, well paying, interesting work.

Marshall of course is looking for companies that want to hire grads – FIS is already a primary program sponsor – and he specifically saus in this podcast that he wants to hear from credit unions. If you have needs for fintech grads and you are in Georgia, shout it out because this might become an answered prayer.

In the program, Marshall tells exactly why Georgia started the Academy, how he got his job, and why this all just may be very important to economic development in Georgia.

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

Listen here

What are people saying about your credit union?

That means members, staff, and community members?

And how does a nasty hack impact your reputation?

Meet Casy Boggs of ReputationUS, where the business is in fact reputation management and a primary emphasis is work with credit unions.

You think you have a great reputation? Don’t guess. Know. Get a reputation audit done and be prepared to be surprised by the results.

Particularly interesting is how a hack impacts a credit union’s reputation, a topic Boggs has studied in depth.

Among his findings: 48% of us are very unlikely to remain a member if their data has been hacked and then used to set up a bogus credit card account.

Good news, per the survey, is the vast majority of us hold credit unions in high reputational esteem.

But don’t take it for granted.

Boggs says in this podcast that too many institutions are unprepared to deal with events that involve a reputational hit – they lack a plan and a plan can smooth the path to recovery.

Bad stuff happens. Are you prepared?

Find out what’s involved in this podcast. 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

Teach them when they are young.

That’s the approach to financial education taken by John Lanza of the Money Mammals, where the focus is on financial education for children 11 and under.

A key: the education becomes a family project.  That means credit unions – and credit unions can sign up with the Money Mammals to access its library of teaching materials and workbooks – will be attracting younger adults with small children.

The material also is branded with the credit union name.

And the financial education itself of course is a key credit union mission.

Lanza stresses that good as it is for kids to get financial education in school, it’s crucial that they also get it at home because they need some money to learn with. Call it allowance and know it can be small.  But that money becomes a teaching tool.

Lanza said he presently is working with 15 credit unions and he wants more.  Some are under $200 million, one is bigger than $3 billion.  So the program will work in just about any size institution.

Give a listen and just maybe you will be persuaded to focus on financial ed and children, the Money Mammals way.

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

Biophilic.

That’s your word for today and it is complements of Jesse Boyer, COO of the $600 million NIH Federal Credit Union in Maryland which is moving at a high speed to open a new branch in Silver Spring that is biophilic in design – meaning it puts you in touch with nature and, in this case, there’s a living moss wall.

Of course you want to hear more about this. 

What this podcast is about is a search for a new, more welcoming branch format and, at the new NIH FCU location, ITMs – interactive teller machines – replace ATMs and oldfashioned tellers.

The idea is to produce a comfortable setting that is both warm and techie.

Some balancing act but the NIH FCU folks think they have the roadmap and in this podcast you will hear about it.

You will also hear candid musing about what a $600 million credit union has to do to insure longterm survival.  Think acquisitions.

This podcast revolves around extremely candid and frank assessments of what needs to be done – in terms of branch reinvention and credit union survival.

Listen to the NIH FCU 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

Do you want to talk about money – or would you prefer to talk about sex?

Many of us today would choose the sex conversation, mainly because we know we don’t know much about personal finance and we also know we don’t anybody to ask for advice.

Enter Tropical Financial in Florida which has introduced a new website Get Beyond Money where the purpose is to provide people (target audience: older millennials) with the financial education they need and want so that they can make smarter, shrewder financial decisions.

The website has plenty of blogs, quizzes, and even offers a free appointment with a financial counselor.

This podcast offers an insider’s view of how this campaign was created – and know it was three years in the making. There were stumbles along the way but that enriches this story.

Also know that Tropical Financial is willing to share its content with non competitive credit unions. Don’t be shy about asking.

Today’s guest is Amy McGraw, the first repeat podcast guest. Last year she starred in episode 10 on the student loan crisis and what Tropical Financial is doing to help.

Now she’s leading the charge in bringing meaningful financial education to older millennials who – in many cases – really don’t know who to ask for advice.  Tropical Financial wants to step into that role.

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