Operating Assumptions and the Great 2021 Budget Challenge
Budget season is among the year’s most stressful and aggravating times under the best of circumstances. Layer on our current uncertainty regarding the economy, public health and election outcomes and the challenge begins to feel insurmountable.
Finovate Fall- Best of Show, Key Themes, and Cool Ideas
The always intriguing Finovate conference followed the rest of society into the digital sphere last week, adapting its tried-and true model of seven-minute demos of cutting edge financial technology just slightly for the new format. While the buzz of a packed auditorium devouring live demos was missing, the ideas being pitched were as compelling as ever.
The Curious World of Checks and Coins
Of all the havoc the coronavirus has wreaked on daily life, disruptions to payments behavior hardly tops the average consumer’s list. Nonetheless these impacts are real, and they matter quite a bit to leaders of credit unions and other financial services firms.
The Debate Continues- How Many Apps Should a Credit Unioan Offer?
A few weeks back John and Kevin initiated a spirited debate over the multiple tradeoffs baked into a credit union’s app strategy- user friendliness, functionality, ease of ongoing updates, etc. Check out our prior post for the first half of this conversation, particularly on whether it’s best to offer a single all-inclusive app addressing every banking need, or a compact ”everyday” app along with a series of others suited for less frequent needs like mortgage applications.
FedNOW… in 2023? The Allure of Instant Payments
The Federal Reserve stirred the pot in 2018 when it requested comments on its offering a real-time payments network, since branded as FedNOW. Credit unions and community banks encouraged the Fed’s entry into the real-time market as a way to ensure widespread access to this important new capability.
Ten Years of Transformation Crammed into Three Months
In the big picture, it’s not as if any of this was a surprise. We’ve known for ages that digital channels were the future of banking, and that credit unions- especially smaller ones- needed to upgrade their tech platforms or risk being left behind.
Is Voice the New Mobile- and the Ultimate Touchless?
It was only a few years ago that I recall BIG’s Resident Visonary John Best counseling credit union leaders regarding their digital strategies, “If you don’t build out your mobile platform, you might as well not bother with digital.” It was a controversial statement at the time, but it’s now conventional wisdom. The hand-held device has become the go-to channel for members across a wide array of demographics, surpassing the desktop for engagement volume.
It’s Time for the Accelerator- NOT the Brake!
It’s entirely understandable for credit union leaders to feel overwhelmed these days. Consider the list of challenges they’ve had to overcome in real time, with little to no advance warning:
Killer FinTech on Display at AXFI
One of the most popular sessions of the AXFI conference- the annual data analytics forum that wrapped up last week in Minneapolis- is the Killer FinTech Speed Rounds. In a single action-packed hour, six standout fintech companies with solutions designed to empower credit unions’ analytics journeys present their models to a packed room of financial leaders