The language on the Finalytics.ai website is bold: “Our mission is simple: use technology to help financial institutions offer the same exceptional service they are known for in-branch, online. As digital commands a greater share of the customer touch, we are passionate about helping organizations grow and keep the promise of modern service excellence alive.”
Read that again.
For as long as I have been involved with credit unions, I have heard c-suite executives telling us that their differentiator is their people.
And then along came the pandemic. What difference do your people mean to the member who does not want to set foot in a branch and in fact wants to move the relationship entirely into the digital realm?
How do you deliver first rate member service through digital channels – and know that it can be done and in fact already is being done (think USAA and Chase)?
These are the questions that shape this podcast with the co-founders of Finalytics.ai, Craig McLaughlin,CEO, and Mark Ryan, chief analytics officer.
Along the way we explore why so many big data projects fizzled into failure at credit unions a decade ago and also why ai – artificial intelligence – is the engine that is reshaping financial services.
And note there are moments to be afraid. For instance: a generation ago your institution had maybe 10 or 20 competitors. Now it has thousands and many aren’t even credit unions or banks.
That’s not to suggest throwing in the towel. But you will have a fight on your hands.
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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
The future of banking just may be voice – but that will probably mean talking with a computer. Already tens of millions of Bank of America customers use its Erica and that number is growing at a brisk rate.
It should be no surprise. Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant are part of many of our lives today. We talk with machines. We like talking with machines.
Question: how is a credit union to compete in this sphere.
Enter Finn AI, a conversational banking company formed precisely to address these needs for credit unions and community banks.
Already Finn AI has a couple credit union customers – BECU is one. And it is looking for more.
That’s why it has scheduled an October 6 virtual conversational banking summit, a half day devoted to giving credit union and bank execs the information they need to make decisions about AI and conversational banking.
If you can’t make the summit, sign up anyway and you’ll get a link so you can watch at a time more convenient for you.
Speakers include executives from Amazon, BECU, MX, United Federal Credit Union (also a Finn AI customer), and Kirk Drake, the founder of CU 2.0 and author of a book on AI.
In this podcast, with Finn AI CEO and co-founder Jake Tyler, you will hear more about the summit but you also will here about Finn AI’s tools, its pricing, and why Tyler is persuaded that conversational AI banking just is not a technology that can be ignored. It’s a candid discussion, tightly focused and to the point.
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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
In the past week, I got exactly $270 in credits on my Amex Plat card and all I did was use the programs Amex has in place and in plain sight.
I have said it before: part of me is irritated that now I have to look around for and, in some cases, specifically enroll in programs to gain the Amex benefits. Life was simpler when – pre pandemic – I flew enough to think the card paid for itself with airport club access. The fact that I accumulated points that I could cash in for vacation flights to Europe, which I have done twice that I recall in recent years, sweetened the deal.
Who needed the rest of the deals and discounts that caused my eyes to fog whenever I contemplated them?
Things are different today. I have not flown in 18 months, have not been in a club in a like timeframe, and that put me into a big rethink regarding Plat. I even contemplated downgrading to Gold. Literally hundreds of dollars in credits that I claimedso far this year – HomeDepot, BestBuy, Goldbelly, miscellaneous streaming video credits – persuaded me to stay put.
But now things are different again, I am traveling, I will within days make use of club access, and in the process I stumbled into very easy Amex credits.
You may already know about them but, as I said, I have no real history of hunting for bonuses. Besides, Amex keeps mixing up the credits – such as the new cellphone protection credit.
Then I noticed an Amex $200 credit to my account for a hotel stay booked via Amex’s Fine Hotels and Resorts tab. I have a one night stay coming up in Madrid, for convenience sake I wanted to stay very near the airport, and I came upon a Hilton that happens to be in that program. I booked it and, a few days later, a credit for the full amount popped up in my account.
Oh, and I already had free Hilton elite status with the card.
I also wanted to book a flight from Santiago de Compostela in Galicia to Madrid and options were few on the day I wanted to travel. Amex Travel had a flight that worked and it also qualified for a $50 credit.
Then there’s also a twice yearly $50 credit at Saks, just for buying stuff online.
And the Madrid hotel and Santiago flight also qualify for 5X points.
Amex also now credits me for the cost of my NY Times digital subscription and I also now get free cellphone protection on two phones, just by paying the T-Mo charge with an Amex card (which I had already been doing).
There’s also a $15/month Uber credit monthly, plus a bonus $20 in December. For the past year I have put that credit to use with Uber Eats.
And a $200 annual airline credit at a carrier I designate. Alas, this year it is American which I have not flown all year and may not fly this year. But once yearly it is allowed to switch carriers which probably I will.
A rub is that many of the Amex programs require enrollment – the Saks credit for instance as well as the $20/month digital credit and there’s that annual selection of one airline for the $200 credit.
Aren’t there programs I would never use? Lots in fact, such as a $25/month credit at Equinox.
But the $695 annual fee for Plat really is rather easy to cover.
The Points Guy, in a recent piece, claims there is an easy $1400 to be had in rewards. I would quibble and immediately erase $300 for the Equinox credit and probably I won’t bother with the $179 Clear credit either.
But will I get $700? Yeah, I will and I am finding that it’s less work than it had been, mainly because I understand the game better. But I just may get the card effectively for free – plus various club stays. There’s nothing not to like about that.
Be real – few credit unions can genuinely be all things to all members because how big would the institution have to be?
As you ponder that – really drill into the idea that there can be success in being small – now consider a fintech named ZSuite Technologies. It has three product lines that it makes available to its financial institution partners: ZRent, aimed at property managers and landlords; ZDeposit, again aimed at property managers and landlords, this tool helps track rental deposits and understand the laws vary by state, sometimes by city; and ZEscrow, which helps escrow account holders – such as lawyers and government agencies – better track and manage those monies.
All niche? You bet but that’s the intent. The initial tools grew out of a Massachusetts community bank which wanted ways to better compete in a marketplace where it sometimes seems that only behemoths thrive. That’s when a lightbulb clicked. Property managers and small landlords had lots of problems – how many still keep paper records? – and so computer skills were harnessed to help solve those problems.
And then why not attempt to persuade those property managers and landlords to shift most – maybe all – of their banking to the institution that helps solve their nagging business problems?
The escrow tools – the most recent addition to the portfolio – grew out of the discovery that for many escrow accounts are a real hassle. But the right computer programming could sole the problems.
All small? You bet. But small can be beautiful.
On the podcast to tell the story of ZSuite is the CEO Nathan Baumeister. He tells about the company’s formation, why small is beautiful, and ZSuite’s ambitions to offer its tools to more credit unions.
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
My trip across the Atlantic looms and a big question popped in front of my eyes: how crazy am I? Everywhere I look people are cancelling international trips, even some domestic travel, mainly as fear of the delta variant spreads fast across the country and hospitalizations, ICU usage, and deaths are all climbing. Is it nuts to cross the water?
And then I remembered the numbers and as I parsed the math I realized what is nuts is staying in Arizona.
About 53% of us in the US are fully vaccinated. My home state of Arizona comes in at 49% (yeah, a lot of dummies in the desert).
Spain, my European destination, is 74.4% fully vaccinated. That is right. Three in four Spaniards are fully vaccinated and they are taking the same good, high grade vaccinations we are in the US.
Better still, Spain now requires US residents who are travelling to Spain to have proof of full vaccination. No proof, no entry.
And the US requires us to present a current negative test result to re-enter the country.
Think what those facts mean. On my flight from JFK to Madrid it is reasonable to assume most passengers will be vaccinated. On the flight from Madrid to JFK, ditto for a preponderance of vaccinated and definitely everybody has a current negative test result.
I am safer on the international flight than I am on the PHX to JFK leg and god help me if that routing were to get shifted to Atlanta where anti vaxxers are boisterous and plentiful.
That is right: selected international travel just is safer than domestic.
Sure, I know the White House has unleashed a push to get many more of us vaccinated but even optimists believe it will be some months before we can match Spain’s present number (and by then Spain probably will be over 90% vaccinated).
The anti-vaxxers are creating our travel miseries. The blame is theirs.
And some are rising to slap them down.
Some airlines – Qantas is a for instance – say they will require all international passengers to be vaccinated. Canada is requiring similar of air passengers effective at the end of October.
Right now, no other airline has a broad requirement for vaccinations among passenger – but many countries now do. Expect more countries and airlines to join these lists. Travel just won’t truly restart until there are broad vaccination mandates and as airlines eye the many empty seats in their international flights you can bet that they will begin to agitate for vaccination requirements.
Don’t the unvaccinated have rights? Perhaps. But I have a right to not want them on my flights, in my hotels, or in the restaurants where I am eating. And many of us are beginning to share that thinking.
Even with my confidence about the health of my fellow travelers on the international legs of my travels, I will be wearing upgraded KF94 face masks which are a sharp step over conventional cloth masks (which I still wear in stores but some airlines have banned them and I am fine upgrading my air travel masks).
What about eating inflight, and bathroom use? I believe I will skip eating and as for the toilet I’d like to say I won’t use it at all but doubt that is realistic for a 7 hour flight. Stay masked, wash hands, maintain distances from other passengers and very probably this will be a safe trip.
But I wouldn’t have the same confidence about a flight to Wyoming or Alabama.
It’s domestic travel that I now see as risky. Talk about a paradox.
Yes, I know the CDC advises us to avoid ravel to Spain – and many, many more countries. I am just counting on my ability to stay health by traveling smart, avoiding the unvaccinated wherever possible, and also I come to this fully vaccinated and as a Covid survivor who probably has many antibodies from the actual disease swimming around my veins.
It’s tough out there. That’s a paraphrase of how Jill Nowacki, a 20 year veteran of the credit union industry and presently CEO of Humanidei + O’Rourke where she focuses on talent recruitment for credit unions.
When fast food outlets are advertising starting pay at $15 and up per hour in much of the country you get a hint of how tough it is right now to recruit for credit unions.
But the problems aren’t limited to entry level jobs. In this podcast Nowacki talks at length about issues in filling c-suite jobs (even CEO slots) and also the increasing challenges in recruiting new members for the board of directors.
One takeaway from this podcast: start thinking strategically about employees and board members. Random just isn’t going to hack it anymore.
Also focus in on the credit union advantages in hiring – for instance a genuine community focus and a focus not on profits but on doing good. Many of us – and especially many younger people – put a high priority on those attitudes and credit unions have the right stuff.
Nowacki admits that at senior level jobs banks have a powerful attraction – stock options that can produce personal wealth. Credit unions do not have options. Bur they have that powerful draw of a culture committed to doing good. And that will bring in job applicants.
Nowacki does not underplay the difficulties in today’s hiring marketplace but she nonetheless is upbeat. That’s the attitude that just may prevail in today’s talent wars.
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
It is time to face up to reality. After months of optimistic forecasts about the return to “normal” in business travel – Panglossian utterances proliferated from the mouths of airline CEOs and their counterparts in the hotel industry – it is increasingly obvious that it ain’t happening. not this year, not next, nowhere in the future we can realistically envision.
Money talks.
A recent Bloomberg survey of 45 large businesses found that 84% plan to spend less on business travel in the post Covid era. Most expected budgets to drop 20 to 40% and to stay dropped.
Why? The c-suite has discovered that we do not need to travel to keep the bottomline climbing. Profits, in most sectors, have been rosy in this era of Zoom calls.
Meantime, a new survey by the American Hotel and Lodging Association found that even business travelers are souring on the idea of going on the road: “About 60% of business traveler respondents indicated they likely would postpone their travel plans until a later date. About 67% noted they are likely to take fewer trips, while 68% said they are likely to take shorter and 66% said they are likely will travel only places they can drive to.”
Not all travel will be nixed, not by the c-suite and not by business travelers. I expect that the travel budgets for sales teams will be restored as soon as we pass through the Delta variant resurgence of Covid-19. I imagine c-suiters and other corporate high flyers will continue to circle the globe too.
What will be cut are many inhouse get togethers and very probably quite a few conferences too.
Ditto trips to offsite trainings. You can learn better email hygiene just as well at your desk watching a Zoom presentation as you would traveling to an offsite meeting at a Virginia hotel.
Travel without a tangible bottomline payoff just is going to be cancelled. But that’s not the only factor.
There are many reasons not to travel and saving money is just one. There also is the sustainability issue and, by any measure, business travel is increasingly seen for what it is – a disaster in terms of carbon and, in 2021, with fires and floods and hurricanes, it is ever harder to deny that climate change is triggering mayhem across the planet. Any organization that wants to be on the right side of sustainability has to be trimming its travel.
Then there are the health impacts of frequent business travel. A 2018 Harvard Business Review article told the sad story: “we found a strong correlation between the frequency of business travel and a wide range of physical and behavioral health risks. Compared to those who spent one to six nights a month away from home for business travel, those who spent 14 or more nights away from home per month had significantly higher body mass index scores and were significantly more likely to report the following: poor self-rated health; clinical symptoms of anxiety, depression and alcohol dependence; no physical activity or exercise; smoking; and trouble sleeping. The odds of being obese were 92% higher for those who traveled 21 or more nights per month compared to those who traveled only one to six nights per month, and this ultra-traveling group also had higher diastolic blood pressure and lower high density lipoprotein (the good cholesterol).”
Frequent business travel may also dull our performance on the job. “Frequent business travelers experience 20 percent less productivity due to jet lag. Business travelers often have less time to recover from journey related stress, which leads to ‘brain fog.'”
The dirty secret is that lots of frequent business travelers plain dislike the grind. The pretense is that it is a life of glamor and excitement but is it really? Maybe it was in 1975. But today? With fist fights over masks, ridiculous arguments about vaccines, hotels without cleaning crews, a shortage of Uber drivers, and the list can go on. Travel just is not much fun anymore and it won’t be anytime soon.
And yet…I remain on track to take a trip to Spain later this year. I look forward to it. I want to go. And it will be fun.
The right trip is a joy. But too much business travel is done just because it gets entered into a calendar.
Me, I am actively erasing future trips.
For instance: although I had been a frequent traveler to conferences and conventions, I have not been to one in a couple years and have no present plans to go. What I get out of them can largely be gotten via Zoom.
I will use the same analytics on all travel possibilities. Whatever travel presents itself to me I will ask, is it necessary? Will it get better results in person?
If the answers aren’t resounding yesses, I will be a no go.
A lot of business travelers feel likewise. Half? I don’t know the percentage but I do believe it is a significant minority who will not only not protest company slashing of travel budgets they will, probably quietly, cheer it.
When a trip is right – and necessary – go. Otherwise I am staying home.,
You know the horror stories – the educational loan burden keeps mounting for many millions and, frankly, the options for lessening that burden are not plentiful.
But there are options. Meet UNest. It’s an app and what it does it help set aside money for a child. It’s flexible too. The underlying law is the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act which allows an adult to set up a tax advantaged savings plan that benefits a minor and the money can be spent on education, but also on a first car or a wedding or many other things.
Who gives also is flexible. Parents of course but also grandparents, other relatives and just plain friends.
Earnings in the account are tax advantaged.
You never heard of the UTMA? Join the club. It is not widely known legislation. But, executed smartly, it can deliver real benefits to a child.
On the podcast to tell us about UNest are Peter Mansfield, CMO, Erin Matta, VP partnerships, and Alison Silverstein, CEO of KidFund, a savings app that recently was acquired by UNest.
Where do credit unions come in? UNest already is working with one credit union to put the UNest app in the hands of members and it is looking for more credit unions to partner with.
Note, too, UNest sees the real power of its app as best serving the middle class and upper middle class – that is, the credit union membership. The app helps with setting savings goals and the ultimate goal is success.
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
Three words about that elevator pitch you have spent many hours polishing, owning, practicing: tear it up.
The rules for creating a winning elevator pitch suddenly are different today. Very different. You need a concise presentation, that is true, but the elevator pitch from yesteryear is about as current as a beehive hairdo, according to many presentation experts and seasoned entrepreneurs who have been laboring in today’s pitch marketplace. That’s because three huge things are different today: video, attention spans, and COVID-19.
I don’t recall the first time I wrote up a warning against using public Wi-Fi when traveling – and that means hotel, airport, restaurant, public transportation (subways, busses) coffee shop, even inflight Wi-Fi. Probably 10 years ago. Maybe longer.
And yet public Wi-Fi sites multiply – one count finds over a half billion globally. That’s because we use it. One survey found 18% of respondents use it more than once a day.
Definitely, too, usage is upped among travelers. When I ask people if they would use the public Wi-Fi up the street from their home the reaction displays similar enthusiasm to what I’d get if I asked their willingness to use a public toilet in the Covid-19 era. But those very same people, when asked, acknowledge they do use public Wi-fi when they travel because “what are my better options?”
We’ll answer that question momentarily – you do have a better option – but, first, understand I now have a heavyweight that is issuing the same stern warnings about public Wi-Fi as I have been. That’s the NSA – aka National Security Agency aka the Puzzle Palace — which now has broken its cover to warn about public Wi-Fi and the risks it poses to us and our employers.
In a recent information sheet, NSA pulls no punches: “Avoid connecting to public Wi-Fi, when possible, as there is an increased risk when using public Wi-Fi networks…. If users choose to connect to public Wi-Fi, they must take precautions. Data sent over public Wi-Fi—especially open public Wi-Fi that does not require a password to access— is vulnerable to theft or manipulation.”
What that says – put in simple terms – is don’t use public Wi-Fi because whatever data you enter is easy pickins for savvy cyber criminals.
Sure, if you want to grab a baseball score from ESPN, or a stock quote, by all means use public Wi-Fi if that’s easy. It probably doesn’t matter. But if what you want to do is send business email or access files on your company’s server or even research prospects on LinkedIn, the strong advice is don’t use public Wi-Fi.
There are thousands of white papers online documenting how hackers hack public Wi-Fi. For them it is rather straightforward. There even are automated tools to speed up the process for the inexpert hackers.
NSA elaborates: “Accessing public Wi-Fi hotspots may be convenient to catch up on work or check email, but public Wi-Fi is often not configured securely. Using these networks may make users’ data and devices more vulnerable to compromise, as cyber actors employ malicious access points, redirect to malicious websites, inject malicious proxies, and eavesdrop on network traffic.”
What the NSA is saying is that when you are using public Wi-Fi you are a fish in a transparent fish bowl and the hackers’ eyes are on your every keystroke. The password to your employer’s server – it’s theirs. The login to your email – it’s theirs. The login to your bank account – yep, that’s theirs too.
All because you took what seemed the easy – and free! – access lane onto the Internet Superhighway and that is what public Wi-Fi is for many millions of us.
What if public Wi-Fi truly is your best option? Here’s NSA’s advice: “If connecting to a public Wi-Fi network, NSA strongly advises using a personal or corporate-provided virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt the traffic.”
Not all VPNs are good. Not all are even trustworthy. Choose a VPN cautiously. Here’s a list of recommended providers from TechRadar. Here’s CNET’s list.
Won’t a VPN slow your speed? Probably, at least a little. But that is a price worth paying for the enhanced security a good VPN provides.
Even with a VPN in place NSA’s “don’t’s list” includes these about public Wi-Fi: *Do not enter most sensitive account passwords on sites/applications. *Avoid accessing personal data (e.g., bank accounts, medical, etc.).
That’s good, cautious advice.
Either way, if you really insist on using public Wi-Fi, do it with a VPN. You don’t have guaranteed safety. But you are pretty secure.
Personally, however, I still prefer to use my cellphone to create a hotspot that I connect an iPad or laptop to. The security is quite good.
Alternatively, since I use a Google Pixel phone on Google FI network, an option I have set up is to use a Google VPN when surfing via Wi-Fi. I use that feature often.
This is the reality: safer surfing is yours if you want it.
But with all the cyber criminals out there, just do something to stay safe.
