The CU2.0 Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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Fact: youth banking is the entry ramp into a credit union.  

Fact 2: Credit unions, most of them, will admit that youth banking is not exactly their strongest suit.

Enter Cardinal Credit Union, a Mentor OH based institution with assets around $335 million, where CEO Chistine Blake saysthey are winning big in attracting youth to get credit union accounts by doing a lot of innovative thinking and mixing in fun activities.

Blake, by the way, is a past podcast guest. In episode 342 she talks about the institution’s relationship with the Cleveland Browns and its Little Brownies debit card aimed at kids.  Since then she has turned to Nuuvia - formerly Incent - where president Marcel King and team have developed a range of youth banking tools and ideas.  King, too, is a past guest.  He was on episode 360 with Pioneer Federal Credit Union EVP Tracey Miller where they talked about youth banking.

On this episode King and Blake dive deeply into what Cardinal is offering, why kids like what they see, and why all of this matters in helping to insure a credit union’s long term success.  In the process King shares compelling data on youth banking at Desert Financial, a big credit union in Phoenix AZ.

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Go back to when I started to report on credit unions and there were over 8000 credit unions.  Now there are 4370.  

In 2020 there were 5099 credit unions.  Just in five years the count is down by 700+.

The math going forward is gloomy.

That’s why I  smiled when I saw Jason Stverak’s CU Insight piece on Why small credit unions matter and how we can help them thrive.

Jason is chief advocacy officer at DCUC, the Defense Credit Union Council and is a past podcast guest.  

Why is he advocating for keeping little credit unions alive?

I had to get him on the show - this episode was recorded on November 12, just hours before the federal government reopened after the longest shutdown in history.

We start by talking about what’s going on in Washington DC now - and quickly move into why DCUC has become an aggressive lobbyist and then we focus on why small credit unions matter and why DCUC cares.

It’s good stuff.

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

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Whew, credit unions dodged the threat of loss of their tax exemption - but don’t think all is smooth sailing for credit unions in today’s turbulent Washington DC.  Lots is happening that may impact credit unions, large and small.

On the show is repeat guest Elizabeth Eurgubian, a lobbyist - with the Defence Credit Union Council among her clients - who also has served as NCUA Director of the Office of External Affairs and Communications and Policy Advisor to Chairman Harper.  Before that  she was deputy chief advocacy officer at CUNA and before that she was a vice president and a lobbyist for ICBA.

Her specialty is regulatory matters and that means NCUA, but also CFPB and other agencies.

In this episode she talks about what’s up with NCUA’s one person board, the shrinking of CFPB, the GENIUS Act and the opportunity presented by stablecoins, and NCUA’s Central Liquidity Enhancements Act and why this matters to smaller credit unions in particular, and also NCUA’s recurring paperwork review and how it’s an opportunity for credit unions to seek changes at the agency.

See: there’s a lot happening inside the Beltway.

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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

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Martin Walker is the man to know if you are a fintech looking for credit union related venture funding and he also is the man to know if you are a credit union looking to invest in fintechs.

On LinkedIn Walker’s tag line is Investing in Fintechs that Enable Credit Unions.

That pretty much says it.

Walker and I started talking at the  June  CU 2.0 Live event in Fountain Hills AZ and that conversation led to this show.

In the show Walker tells fintechs what they need to know and do to snare an investment from Curql - hint: a credit union nexus is a sine qua non - and he also tells credit unions a new fund investment round has opened and is looking for a few more investors.

These efforts are critical.  To continue to thrive credit unions need to keep upping their technology game.  Period.

Listen up.

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

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Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

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Probably you think a book titled Community Capital has to be a snoozefest.  

And then there’s the new book with that title written by Clifford Rosenthal and Michael McCray and it’s a book that will rock you and your beliefs about NCUA, African American focused credit unions and more.

The book splits into two parts.  There’s Rosenthal’s part where he looks at the struggles of smaller community based crest unions - he served as CEO of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions (now Inclusiv) for almost 30 years.  He also put in a stint at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He also has been a guest on the podcast, episode 37 back in 2019.

And know that although Rosenthal documents the struggles of small community development credit unions, recent developments at the federal level have left him sounding downright optimistic.

Then there’s Michael McCray’s part of the book, which documents what he sees as NCUA’s systematic destruction of the Kappa Alpha Psi Credit Union, the country’s first virtual credit union.  Kappa Alpha Psi is an historic African American fraternity and the credit union did not go down without a fight.

Note: there are a few minor audio problems early in the podcast - crackling sounds that technology didn't filter out. But the words are always audible and the content is compelling.

Listen up.

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

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Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

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Call this the credit union oral history sequence - Blaine, Bucky Sebastian, now Gary Oakland who took over BECU, with around $700 million in assets, in the mid 1980s and when he left in 2012 it had become a $10 billion+ credit union, one of the nation's very biggest.

How'd he do it? Listen up.

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Four years ago Kirk Drake wrote a book that explored how artificial intelligence - AI - would transform financial services.  

Now he’s released a free addendum that tells what he got right in the book, what he got wrong, how he is using AI tools to effect big gains in his personal productivity and where he sees AI making big differences in credit union operations.

It’s meaty stuff and also keenly practical.

That’s why he is on the show today with Chris Otey, co-founder of CU 2.0 and CRO.  

Put the two of them in the same show and you are guaranteed a good, candid and fun discussion.

Listen up.

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

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Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

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Artificial intelligence: is it real or a mirage?

Lots of credit union executives are pondering exactly that question and on the show today are Steve O’Donnell, EVP at One Nevada Credit Union, and Saroop Bahrwani, founder of Senso and CUCopilot, a generative AI toolkit.

They came to the show fresh from a three day joint engagement where Saroop and his team went to the One Nevada offices and  branches and dug deep into what AI is doing and could be doing to make credit union work flows more efficient.

This is not all blue sky theory. A lot of this show is discussing everyday practicalities and how AI can speed them up.

For instance: wouldn’t you like to feed into a computer a batch of your auto loans that went bad and ask the computer to identify what they had in common? One Nevada is doing something much like that already.  O’Donnell tells what they’ve learned.

O’Donnell also muses on the likely impacts of AI on credit union jobs.

Saroop also shares his view of AI tomorrow at credit unions.

This is an upbeat show.

Flip through back pages by listening to Saroop's past appearances on the show - here and here and here.  

Listen up.

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

And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.
 
 

Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

Send a text

What happens when an executive who is seeking a SERP plan to sweeten his/her retirement years is turned down for life insurance - which is the bedrock that supports many SERP plans?

And people do get turned down for life insurance due to health issues. Anything from cancer to obesity.

On the show today is Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union, one of the nation’s largest, and now a partner with PARC Street, where the focus is on matching executives and credit unions with appropriate SERP packages.  

He explains a work-around that still allows the executive to get that SERP.

Know that now probably 95% of larger credit unions offer SERPs, at least to the CEO, often to a handful of c-suiters.  What’s the story at the other 5%?  Kordeleski tells in this show.

He also talks about mergers, recent CEO terminations (more keep happening), and the continuing war for talent that means more and more credit unions need to look at adopting SERP packages.

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A state regulator in Illinois. General counsel at NCUA. A co-founder of Callahan Associates. Longtime CEO at GTE Financial.  Head of the National Credit Union Foundation. Guess who.

Meet Wendell Sebastian, call him Bucky.