Send us a text Rik Reitmaier is CIO at Tennessee based Ascend Federal Credit Union, with $4.4 billion in assets and 245,000. That puts Ascend in the nation’s top 100 credit unions. And Reitmaier is on the show to talk about the wide range of issues, worries and concerns that are on his mind. AI of course is high on that list and Reitmaier explains both Ascend’s position on AI today and why he thinks it’s the right course. Hint: many Ascend employees are already using Copilot. Th...

Send us a text I fancy myself something of a minor expert on Medicare and often have advised friends who are approaching 65 about their best options. Until a man I know approached me and asked for my advice. He added he was dually qualified for Medicare and Medicaid and he thought he probably qualified for food benefits, too. Huh? I had no idea what he was talking about and had to admit to him I was useless in this case. Today I advised him to find a credit union he coul...

Send us a text Mark Ritter, CEO of Member Business Financial Services, a Pennsylvania based CUSO, estimates that about 800 US credit unions do member business lending, meaning that perhaps 3700 don’t. Many, many more could. That is spelled out in HR 1151, the law that lets credit unions serve more than one employer group. Passage of that law is detailed in CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 51 with Marc Schaefer, then the CEO of Truliant CU. If credit unions can make small business loans,...

Send us a text It’s typically the first in depth contact a non member has with a credit union and that non member, increasingly, is seeking to open a new account online. Good luck with that. The brutal fact is that digital account opening tools at most credit unions are inadequate - and an upshot is a stampede of would-be members who simply abandon the process. That’s why today’s show features Philip Paul, CEO of Cotribute, a developer of digital member onboarding tools, and Kathy Richa...

Send us a text The conversation with West Community Credit Union’s Josh Rodriguez started in Ashland OR at the CU 2.0/ Room (39) a event in late September and in this podcast it picks up again. Fodder for the show came in the form of a questionnaire distributed to event attendees and Josh had dutifully filled his in. He agreed to discuss his answers on this show and we take as the jumping off point West Community Credit Union’s podcast “Banking on You.” It’s a good show and ough...

Send us a text 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 ...

Send us a text 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 pas...

Send us a text Big data vs. AI. Is this a war inside the walls of credit unions or can the two flourish in harmony? On the show are Anne Legg, founder and CEO of Thrive 3.0, where the mantra is leveraging data to better members’ lives, and Saroop Bharwani, co-founder and CEO of Senso, where he has been bringing AI to credit unions for several years. What you’ll hear in this episode is that indeed big data and AI can - should - co-exist for optimal results in credit unions. Along the w...

Send us a text You have a brand. Know it or not, like it or not, you do. And on the show today is Laura Beauparlant, a Canada based keynote speaker and consultant who helps clients know and polish their personal brand. What’s your brand on social media? In meetings? At conferences? Others sense your brand and that means it’s important for you to buff your brand until it shows you off in your best light. In the show Laura talks about the how to of shaping your personal brand. And...

Send us a text About 45 credit unions are customers of JUDI.AI and they are drawn by the company’s simple promise: Eliminate friction in business lending. There is money to be made serving small businesses and JUDI.AI has the formula, says Gord Baizley, the company’s CEO. A key is automating a lot of the process and that’s JUDI.AI’s business. Here’s why the company exists: “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, but 40-50% of small businesses rank access to capital as ...

Send us a text “Prepare: AI is the new CU crisis super villain.” That’s the title of a recent CUInsight story authored by Casey Boggs, founder of Reputation US, an d of course we had to get him on this podcast. Understand, I am a strong supporter of AI in general and AI in particular inside credit unions. This is a life and death matter. Yet there is a possible downside to AI and we already know that the main AI tools have played substantial roles in teen suicides, in creating...

Send us a text Exactly what is Room (39)a? There’s one at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center but today we are talking about the Room (39)a at CFCU, Community Financial Credit Union in Michigan, where past CU 2.0 Podcast guest Tansley Stearns serves as CEO and she has launched this Room (39)a as a CUSO that will offer subscriptions to its research. As for what it does, CFCU’s Room (39)a describes itself this way: “a place where possibility and the unexpected collide. We blend the precision of res...

Send us a text Three years ago Tropical Financial Credit Union, a $1 billion south Florida institution, signed on as a sponsor of the Florida Panthers and magic happened because the Panthers - in the National Hockey League - won the Stanley Cup in 2024 and won again in 2025. That’s the equivalent of winning the World Series in baseball or the Super Bowl in football and, definitely, the Panthers now are the darlings of south Florida because everybody loves a winner. On the show is Marylen Yi...

Send us a text Back on the show today after a hiatus is Kirk Kordeleski, onetime CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union and now a partner in Parc Street Partners where he focuses on credit union executive retirement plans. Kordeleski has been on the show many times but he always is welcomed back because he has deep insight into what it’s like to be a credit union CEO and also into how to compensate those CEOs appropriately. Here’s a link to the Kordeleski Archives. What brings Kordele...

Send us a text Tansley Stearns had been working in a credit union for maybe five years when a big idea grabbed her: she decided she wanted to be a CEO of a credit union. For a young woman who had grown up on a farm in southern Michigan that was a very big idea. Three years ago she made it happen, when she was named CEO at Community Financial Credit Union, a Plymouth MI headquartered institution. How is she liking the job? Is sitting in the CEO seat what it’s cracked up to be? ‘I...

Send us a text 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 Harp...

Send us a text You might know it as the dismal science, but a conversation with Bill Handel, Chief Economist of Raddon, a Fiserv company, is anything but dismal. It in fact is an enlightening romp through the complexities and confusions of today’s global economy. In the show Handel makes a prediction about the future of interest rates - and, no, don’t expect an imminent return of 4% 30 year fixed rate mortgages. He also talks about how young adults are adjusting their financi...

Send us a text I am not going to explain to you in any detail what TrustGrid does and that is because in the show Joe Gleinsner, a co-founder of the Austin TX company, does a much better job of explaining than I could. But here’s the fact: TrustGrid’s tools - which enable secure connections of fintech apps with banking systems - are on the job at a couple thousand US credit unions, says Gleinser. Why haven’t you heard of it? That’s because TrustGrid does not sell to credit un...

Send us a text Now for a feel good show. Lee Silber has put together a book, The Credit Union Way, that he says is inspired by the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and right away that tells you this is a feel good book. How did it come together? On the show Silber tells how he put together the stories - each of which relates a special credit union moment. In the episode Silber reads a chapter from the book - entitled Frank’s Fund - that was written by Anne Legg who happens to be a...

Send us a text AI - is it real or a mirage? What is certain is that today AI is on the lips on just about everyone in credit union land. What also is real is a recent MIT finding that 95% of large companies with AI initiatives are getting zilch out of them. Ouch. That does not have to be the reality for credit unions. On the show today is Kirk Drake, CEO of CU 2.0, author of FINANCIAL, a 2020 book that envisions the rise of AI in our lives and in credit unions, and he also is hostin...