Credit Union Recipe: Not Shaken, Not Stirred
by Bo McDonald We all know that James Bond’s preferred Martini is “Shaken, not stirred.” Sean Connery first made that order as Bond in the movie Goldfinger. But a recent article in The Atlantic [...]
News Archives
The Retail Banking Revolution May Be Over Before a Shot is Fired
by Tom The folks at American Express and Wal-Mart are chirping about Bluebird, especially since it looks like they don’t have to worry about the July expiration of the Dodd-Frank Act’s ban on [...]
The Direct and Indirect Impacts of Increased Compliance Costs on Credit Unions and Their Members
by. Matthew D. Urban Ever since the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), compliance related issues have increasingly impacted credit unions’ day-to-day operations. Tasks that used [...]
Knock Somebody Off The Pedestal
In a recent industry analyst meeting, the CEO of a large financial technology firm laid out his firm’s vision for expanding into new markets within the financial services space. I asked him “Who do [...]
Fast Facts: Current Economic Conditions in the United States
The Financial Services Roundtable recently released another iteration of its Fast Facts, reliable, bullet-point research about issues facing the financial services industry. Topics span TARP, Dodd-Frank, insurance, lending, retirement savings and more. This iteration focuses [...]
Rock & Roll for Credit Unions 5: The Beatles on Member Retention
I’d expect the Beatles’ knowledge of Credit Unions was limited. But that’s not the point. Whether they knew it or not----they composed an awesome song with a great lesson in membership retention for [...]
Work Balance Key to Clean House and Health of Your Credit Union Team
I know this may sound hypocritical because it’s 9 o’clock on a Saturday (ooh, I hear a song in the works) as I write this, but the tale remains relevant. Maintaining a decent [...]
Repeatable Message: Do You Have One?
I recently had the privilege of seeing Harley-Davidson CEO Ken Schmidt give a keynote address at the CSCU Conference in St. Petersburg, Fla. I didn’t know what to expect but liked his background of [...]
5 Ways to Appeal to First-time Home-Buyers
by Mike Corn and Tina Powers Owning a home is still part of the American dream, according to a new JPMorgan Chase survey reported in HousingWire. The survey reveals “87% of Americans surveyed said owning [...]
Challenge the Lending Status Quo
By Brett Christensen A great definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It certainly applies to the current state of credit union lending. If returns are [...]
Crawling Before Walking?
by Keith Leggett In 2011, NCUA Chairman Debbie Matz stated that credit unions that wanted expanded business lending authority needed to crawl before they walk. NCUA Chairman Matz during her testimony regarding raising the member [...]
Your Employees Need to Cross the Line
by Mark Arnold My lovely wife is a first grade teacher. It’s a challenging job to say the least. Every day she has to encourage her students to learn. To help reinforce the concept [...]
Cornell Conclusion: The Big 3 From The Big Red
by Devin Selte In most of the training sessions that I provide as part of my role as a corporate trainer at Servus Credit Union, I think back to the days when I was on [...]
Brand Benefits and Control
The term “Web-to-Print” is one that is familiar to most people in the document management and printing industries. But if you are a corporate marketing professional you may not be as familiar with the concept [...]
Where’s the Definition of a Housing Recovery?
by Steve Topper How do we know when the housing market has recovered? Today’s blog was originally going to be about a Virginia bank that recently brought back Free Checking. I enjoy writing about [...]