The CU2.0 Podcast

Send us Fan MailIn 2024 Erin Hennessy joined PSECU, now a $9 billion credit union, where her role is Chief Member Experience Officer.  She reports directly to PSECU’s CEO, George Rudolph.It’s where Hennessy came from that is the surprise twist in this story: Rocket Mortgage, where she had been SVP of Marketing.You know Rocket? That fintech that’s gobbled up a huge share of the mortgage origination market, also mortgage servicing.So of course one of our first questions was: what kind of pay drop did you take?  And why?The conversation then veers into one thing Hennessy very much wants to bring from Rocket into PSECU and that is speed.Credit unions, just about all of them, prefer deliberate, slow motion implementation of innovation.That just doesn’t work in a world where fintechs run on speed and, increasingly, the mega banks seek to do likewise.So Hennessy talks about speed at Rocket and also about how she has been seeking to import a similar mindset into PSECU.It’s a good show that pokes into everything from mortgage origination to AI implementation at credit unions.Listen up.Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]  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 us Fan MailCall this an oldie but a goodie.Indeed it is and it is more than that because it shines a bright light on the emergence of AI as a key technology in credit unions.Back in 2019, in CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 14, Karan Kashyap, co-founder and CEO of Posh, a company that had been nurtured in the DCU Innovation Center in Boston.  That center is no more, DCU now of course has merged with First Tech to form First Tech Federal Credit Union, a $28 billion institution.Back in 2019 Karan danced around my question about how many credit union customers he had - but he definitely had DCU and still does.  But now Posh has around 150 financial institutions as customers, a number he throws out without hesitation.What is Posh’s focus? It was AI in 2019 - when few in credit union land had a clue about AI.And it is AI now, when most credit unions definitely know about AI and many are rushing to embrace it.In this year’s show Karan tells the evolution of Posh’s focus, why right now the credit union appetite for AI tilts towards employee facing tools, and why the transformational era of AI will flourish when credit unions extend more AI tools to members.Call this show a capsule history of AI in credit unions and that’s true. But it also is a look into the future of AI.Listen up. Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]  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 us Fan MailWhen Shane Saunders took over as CEO of Mocse Credit Union, a $430 million institution based in Modesto CA, he knew job one had to be pushing and pulling the credit union into the digital age.Mocse had tech of course.  Saunders didn’t believe it was good enough especially as credit unions nowadays compete with everything from Bank of America to online fintechs.So he brought in Narmi, whose slogan is Be where banking is going.This is a special episode.  Mocse isn’t quite at the finish line with Narmi’s implementations but it’s close and Saunders offers a candid assessment of how the process has gone.Understand, he’s a longtime credit union veteran.  His credit union career goes back almost 30 years.  He came to Mocse from Maps, the $1,7 billion institution where he had served as chief experience officer.At Mocse - Modesto City School Employees - he is deep in California’s central valley, an agriculture rooted area, far removed from Silicon Valley and the glitter of Los Angeles.But Mocse members use digital banking - and Saunders resolved to give them better.Also on this show is Nikhil Lakhanpal, Narmi co-founder who served as CEO of Georgetown University Alumni & Student Federal Credit Union when he was a student.Nikhil joined the show in progress.  For the show’s first 8 minutes Saunders is the solo guest and try as I did to get him to complain about Narmi, well, listen for yourself.Listen upLike what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]  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 us Fan MailMost credit unions have financial literacy initiatives for members - but what if that is doing too little, too late?This podcast explores a wholly different approach to raising financial literacy.But, first, there’s a video for you to watch: Working Class.  31 minutes long.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a 31 minute video is worth maybe a million.What you will see is a movie where 8th graders at a middle school get excited learning about how to budget, how to manage money.  Raub Middle School’s student body is majority Hispanic.  This is not a high income neighborhood.  And yet - or maybe because of that - in the course of the documentary you will see kids who really get excited about learning how to manage money.On the podcast are Luis Soto, SVP & Managing Director, Strategy & Growth at First Commonwealth Federal Credit Union, a $1.4 billion institution headquartered in Allentown, PA; Jose Delgado, principal of Raub Middle School in Allentown; and Malcolm Critcher, the director of the film and an executive at Brink Media.Why did First Commonwealth initiate this project?  In the show you will hear why.Why did Raub Middle School want to get involved? You’ll find out in the show.Understand, on this show, the guests join at different times. From the beginning Critcher is on.  Then Soto joins.  Then Delgado.In a few places the audio may be a bit scratchy.  But audio generally is quite good so stay patient,You are about to hear something entirely new and different.And watch the video!Listen up.

Send us Fan MailExactly what does the National Credit Union Foundation do?I found myself pondering that question - and decided the best answer would be to get Lauren Culp executive director of the Foundation on the show.   On the Foundation website, it says of itself: The National Credit Union Foundation is the charitable arm of the U.S. credit union movement. Our mission is to improve financial well-being with and through credit unions.But the question remains: how?Turns out that the Foundation does lots of good things, from helping educate executives into the ways of credit unions through providing disaster relief when a credit union needs it and helping foster kids achieve a measure of financial stability.  It’s all good stuff and understand: the show’s opening question is, if the Foundation disappeared tomorrow, what would change for credit unions?As for Culp, before joining NCUF, she worked at True North Credit Union in Juneau,  Filene, and CU Insight (where she served as CEO for five years).  That background gives her a broad perspective on credit unions, what they do and who they are.You’ll definitely know she’s a credit union true believer when you listen to the show.Listen up.Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]  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 us Fan MailThink it’s hard to convince new members to open an account at your credit union?Think again.Do what the big FIs - Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank - routinely do: offer cash incentives for joining the institution.How much?  $400 to $500 are numbers often seen and sometimes the bounty climbs to as much as $1000.Are credit unions in this too? Indeed they are, and on the show is Fred Cadena, a senior vice president at Vericast, a company that check printer Harland Clarke transformed into  Upwards of 4000 banks and credit unions are Vericast customers and a big service they offer involves strategies for attracting new members and customers.And money definitely talks in this process.But a key is offering it intelligently.  Cadena explains that this typically involves tasking the new member with doing a task or two such as setting up a recurring automatic deposit - a pay check is ideal - or perhaps swiping a debit card X times.Financial bonuses can also help sell CDs, loans, saving accounts - there are lots of uses for these bonuses, Cadena elaborates.Listen up.Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]  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 us Fan MailYear in, year out maybe 150 credit unions go out of business, mainly as a result  of mergers, but a few voluntarily close and NCUA sometimes shuts a few doors.Year in, year out new credit unions spring to life.  Two or three every year.  Do the math,.  It’s grim.  It’s not a pleasant look into credit union futures.Now listen to Ben Hering, formerly director of engagement at the Minnesota Credit Union Network, where he helped birth Arise Credit Union. He now is director of CU System Partnerships at consultancy CuCollaborate where his focus is on helping to stimulate the development of de novo credit unions and his near-term goal is to double today’s birth rate.How? In today’s show he tells how and he also acknowledges the hurdles.This isn’t an easy task to take on but, as Hering says, he’s helped do it before and he expresses optimism that he can do it again.He will need help from many corners. Including, notably, vendors to credit unions but also the regulators and politicians.Is Hering’s a Sisyphean pursuit?  A cautionary tale is the story of Maine Harvest, a de novo credit union featured in episode 8 of this show.  Hold the applause.  Maine Harvest did successfully launch.  But within a couple years it unfurled a white flag and merged into a bigger Maine credit union.But, for now, Hering’s is an optimistic voice.  And many more new credit unions would indeed be a wonderful thing.Listen up.Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]  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 us Fan MailIn the first half of 2026 credit union mergers were down, admits Peter Duffy, a mergers expert now with Strategic Resource Management - but don’t expect that to be a permanent downturn.Mergers will pick up and there will continue to be big credits merging with big credit unions.Duffy, who has guested on the show multiple times before, is one of the leading experts on the subject of credit union mergers.  On this episode he tells why there’s been a slowing in 2026, and also why it seems an inevitability that we will see renewed interest among credit unions in doing a merger.It was just a handful of years ago when a credit union merger was something of a rarity and when it did occur it usually was what I have long called a mercy marriage - some might call it a shotgun wedding - which meant a big credit union swallowed a little one at the request of a regulator.What’s different now is that many - most? - credit unions have begun to see merger as a strategic gambit that just might be the right path into a more successful future.Hear the full story about mergers in 2026 - listen up!Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]  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 us Fan MailWe need more business members!That could count as a credit union chant of the last decade but a reality is that many credit unions have simply not achieved their goals in terms of enrolling more business members.Enter Goodbuy, which describes itself as “the game changing solution for credit unions, accelerating new SMB account openings.”Now know this: Boise based Goodbuy in June registered as a CUSO and in the process it closed on a $1 million investment from One Washington Financial (OWF), Reseda Group (a wholly owned CUSO of Michigan State University Federal Credit Union), Maps Credit Union and Together Credit Union.One Washington Financial itself is a CUSO, wholly owned by Washington State Employees Credit Union and its mission is investing in the future of credit union innovation.On this show is Scott Daukas, chief partnership officer at One Washington Financial and himself a past guest on this podcast.Daukas explains why One Washington Financial invested in Goodbuy - WSECU itself is implementing the Goodbuy platform - and he adds that he envisions very good things for credit unions that work with Goodbuy.Also on the show is Goodbuy CEO Cara Oppenheimer who says that Goodbuy is a credit union-branded community marketplace that helps credit unions offer exclusive local business discounts to members, creating a unique differentiator against traditional banks while driving deposit growth and engagement.Sound good?  Oppenheimer tells the details - and she details Goodbuy successes with Michigan State University Federal Credit Union which has launched its Hello, Local which helps local businesses offer special deals to MSUFCU members, making this a win-win-win for the business, the consumer member and the credit union.Listen up.Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]  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 us Fan MailYou know the sad story of IBEW Local Union 712 Federal Credit Union in Beaver PA in 2020.  In an institution with assets of $7.7 million the CE) managed to run up $2,1 million in credit card debt. And in May 2020 NCUA conserved the credit union.  RIP.Except now Andy Janning, a longtime credit union expert, is on the case with a new podcast OVERDRAWN that focuses on the human costs, systemic failures, and real world consequences of this credit union failure and also on the continuing impacts on the credit union that absorbed the remains of the IBEW credit union, West Penn P & P Federal Credit Union, also in Beaver.Janning’s approach is not what’s expected.  The obvious approach is to focus on the NCUA’s failure of oversight and also on the failure of the Supervisory Committee.  Janning does not ignore these threads but his vision is aimed at other elements of the story, elements that often are ignored.Janning above all is focused on the human impacts and the stories of the people who lived through the failure of the IBEW credit union and also on West Penn employees.His show features many of these voices.  You will hear from the people themselves.  Listen up to this episode, the CU 2.0 show.  And also give a listen to Janning’s Overdrawn podcast. There’s a link in the show notes.Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email [email protected]  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