Five Steps to Creating a Digital Culture

When asked “In the past year, which method did you use most often to manage your bank account(s)?” consumers responded as follows: Mobile (apps on smartphone or tablet) – 45% Internet/Online (Laptop or PC) – 27% Branches – 14% (Oct 31, 2022 – American Bankers Association) This statistic says a lot! Mobile utilization is the preferred method…

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The Seven Steps to Becoming an Innovative Credit Union

As the financial landscape evolves and becomes disrupted, credit unions face the challenge of staying relevant. To maintain relevancy, innovation becomes a must-have if the organization is to meet the changing needs of its members. Embracing innovation is vital for credit unions to thrive. But innovation, for innovation’s sake, is not helpful. All innovation must…

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Credit Unions, Innovate or Die…

Credit unions have been around for over a century and have played a vital role in providing financial services to consumers. However, the financial services industry has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, and credit unions need to innovate to remain relevant in today’s market. In the late 90s, online banking was an innovation…

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Financial Literacy vs Financial Wellness – a Consumer’s View

Credit unions and banks across the country have financial literacy on their to-do list, but what consumers need/want is a roadmap to financial wellness, not just financial literacy. Well, what’s the difference? Financial literacy is about understanding money basics. Typically the curriculum includes topics like “how to balance your checkbook,” “what is a savings account,”…

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Make your Strategic Plan a Hero’s Story

When doing a strategic plan, most organizations really are good at thinking with aspiration, hope, and promise. Where the “failure” happens is on the execution of the plan. If you think about engaging movies, they all seem to be stories that include a variation of the hero’s journey. “Lord of the Rings”, “Star Wars”, and…

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Five Strategic Questions for the Board and Senior Management

It’s a strange time for credit unions. Credit unions face unprecedented pressures from regulators and examiners and capital pressures for net interest margins and fee income. Often they don’t benefit from “economies of scale” or the resources, people, and capital, to invest in the infrastructure demands of vendor due diligence, regulatory compliance, or technology demands…

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Is your Credit Union’s Org Chart Strategically Aligned?

Is your credit union organized for today’s consumers? Unfortunately, credit unions are often “stuck” in an organization chart that reflects the business of the past, not the company of the future. But what needs to change? Too often, the credit union’s org structure is aligned historically based on legacy roles and job descriptions. The problem…

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Three Things That Go Wrong with Data Reports

A consistent issue most credit unions have is the lack of consistency from one report to the next. To diagnose why this inconsistency exists we should look first at these three elements of the report: Timing – two reports run at two different end times or interval times will tell different stories. But it’s not…

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Preparing Your Culture Ready for Data Analytics

When most of us think about data, we think about numbers, charts, graphs, and reports. However, we need to talk about CULTURE. Collecting, aggregating, normalizing, manipulating, and presenting data seems to consume the conversation. However, here is the question we need to ask ourselves, “Is our culture ready to become truly data-driven?” Too often organizations…

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