Strategic topics
U.S. economic outlook & its impact on credit unions
The U.S. economy is experiencing historic demand and supply shocks leading to the highest inflation in 40 years. The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates at the fastest pace in 40 years. What will higher interest rates do to the economy in 2023 and beyond? Are fundamental changes in the jobs market apt to cause long-term labor shortages and wage pressures? Explore the possible paths of the economy and what impact it will have on credit union balance sheets and income statements for the next two years.
Key Takeaway: Amidst historic inflation and rapid interest rate hikes, credit unions must closely monitor potential economic shifts, including labor market changes, to adeptly manage their financial strategies and mitigate impacts on their financial health in the coming years.
Building digital strategies: slow & steady wins the race
Think of building your digital strategy like nurturing a garden. It's not about the quickest fix; it's about careful planning, trying out what works (and what doesn't), and making sure each step is as effective as possible. We'll explore tools and tactics that are like your gardening kit, helping you to grow robustly while keeping risks to a minimum.
Key Takeaway: Small, steady steps in the digital world lead to big wins. Patience and the right tools are your best allies!
Visibility matters in a digital age
Imagine your digital platform as a bustling marketplace. To make your products stand out, you need the best stall in the perfect location. We'll share the secrets to making your digital presence pop, ensuring customers know exactly where to find you and what you offer.
Key Takeaway: Being visible is being available right where and when your customer needs you — shine bright in the digital marketplace!
Unveiling key moments of receptivity for digital products
Catching the right moment to chat with a friend makes all the difference in our busy lives, and so it does in digital marketing! We'll guide you through recognizing those perfect moments to engage with members, using broadly available tools and strategies that feel like having a good conversation.
Key Takeaway: Knowing when to say "hello" in the digital world makes your message welcomed and effective.
Learning from historic patterns of integrated experiences
History is the best teacher, even in the technology world! We'll look at a few case studies from our many integrations and share best practices vetted with large and small fintechs, teaching us how to smoothly integrate and embed new products.
Key Takeaway: Learning from the past lights up the path to a smoother, smarter future.
Delivering consistent embedded experiences
Keeping a consistent experience across different platforms is like ensuring your favorite coffee tastes the same, no matter where you order it. We'll explore ways to keep your user experience deliciously consistent, ensuring members always enjoy what you offer, no matter where they are.
Key Takeaway: Consistency is the secret ingredient for trust and satisfaction in the user experience recipe.
Building a balanced approach to innovation
Imagine innovation as a seesaw. On one side, you've got exciting, bold new ideas; on the other, tried-and-true improvements. We'll chat about balancing these to keep your innovation seesaw fun and effective, ensuring you're always moving forward without tipping over.
Key Takeaway: Balance in innovation keeps you moving steadily forward — enjoy the ride!
How embedded finance is shaping financial services
Embedded finance is changing when, where, and how people interact with financial services. The market is growing rapidly, generating over $20 billion of revenues across payments, lending, banking, and cards and projected to expand to $51 billion by 2026. While credit unions face the threat of disintermediation with the new embedded finance value chain, it also poses a tremendous growth opportunity. Learn firsthand the ways embedded finance meets the needs of members today and how credit unions can identify the verticals that allow them entry into this new value chain to expand their reach.
Key Takeaway: Embedded finance presents a unique growth opportunity for credit unions to integrate into new financial service models, meeting member needs while expanding their market reach.
Driving financial inclusion through fintech partnerships
Speaker(s): Elizabeth McCluskey, Director of the Discovery Fund, TruStage™ Ventures and/or portfolio company panelist and/or credit union panelist
The demographics of consumers are shifting. Over the last five years, multicultural consumers accounted for 100% of US population growth and 61% of credit union member growth. Millennial and Gen Z consumers represent the largest segment of the US workforce. Yet despite the growth in these demographics, the racial and generational wealth gaps are only widening. And the majority of Americans are less financially literate and more financially insecure than ever before. How can credit unions support the needs of their diverse membership bases and make sure they are financially inclusive? Join us to dive deeper into the evolving financial needs of consumers and hear about fintechs and credit unions who are working together to erase inequalities.
The impact of generative AI on financial services
We will discuss generative AI and the potential it has to transform the financial services industry. Already, it is allowing for further automation of financial analysis and reporting, enhancement of risk mitigation efforts, and optimization of financial operations. Technology is beginning to play an increasingly decisive role in addressing a range of financial, regulatory, and competitive challenges. As AI capabilities become available to everyone, credit unions and other financial institutions will want to build intelligent solutions to provide these revolutionary new capabilities for both employees and customers.
Key Takeaway: Generative AI is set to revolutionize financial services by enhancing automation, improving risk management, and streamlining operations, offering credit unions new ways to serve members efficiently.
Credit union roadmap to successful partnerships
Strategic fintech partnerships can open the door for credit union growth like increased loan volume, accelerated time to market, enhanced member experience, improved productivity, and more. However, finding and vetting the right partner for your credit union requires significant effort and diligence. Join this session to gain tips for building and maintaining successful fintech partnerships.
Key Takeaway: Strategic fintech partnerships offer growth opportunities for credit unions, but success hinges on diligent partner selection and fostering mutually beneficial relationships.
Accelerating loan growth through fintech partnerships
With fintechs attracting consumers due to their ease and convenience — it’s really no surprise that credit unions are turning to fintech partners to help grow their loan portfolio. Additionally, fintech partnerships can help members save time, money and make better financial decisions without having to ramp up credit union staffing or expensive infrastructure. This panel will highlight the unique perspectives from a credit union leader and fintechs who are working towards building successful and sustainable partnerships.
Key Takeaway: Fintech collaborations can boost credit union loan portfolios by combining the convenience of fintech solutions with credit unions' member-focused services.
How to leverage Chat GPT to raise more deposits and fund loans quicker?
AI has become a hot topic in technology, science, and even pop culture and Chat GPT is the fastest growing company… ever. The obvious question, however, is how to leverage it in the Credit Unions’ efforts to raise more deposits or fund loans quicker?
Learn how Chat GPT can assist Credit Unions in raising more deposits by engaging with members, addressing their inquiries, and offering tailored recommendations. Moreover, Chat GPT can significantly speed up the loan funding process for Credit Unions. Members can chat with the AI system to inquire about loan eligibility criteria, the application process and status, and the required documentation.
When applied cleverly, Chat GPT’s capabilities will blow your mind… and deposits growth!
Key Takeaway: Chat GPT can transform member engagement and streamline loan processes, leading to increased deposits and faster loan funding by providing personalized, efficient interactions.
How to raise deposits in a raising rate environment?
In a raising interest rate environment, “hot money” is floating around and Credit Unions compete with Chase and other FinTechs for deposits. The solution lies in providing seamless digital experiences for consumers and small businesses. Unfortunately, the current account opening process of most Credit Unions is cumbersome, involving manual reviews of all applications for fraud, leading to a disjointed funding process.
Credit Unions are once again held hostage by legacy software providers.
In order to compete with the Chases or Chimes of the world, we need to fully automated the account opening process. Learn how to remove friction from your processes, address fraud with a state-of-the-art approach and truly lean on the Credit Union’s advantages.
Key Takeaway: Competing for deposits in a high-rate environment requires credit unions to streamline digital experiences and innovate account opening processes to outpace traditional and fintech competitors.
What’s the ideal technology stack for your credit union’s digital transformation?
The Credit Union industry has made a tremendous amount of progress in embracing technological advancements to stay competitive and meet the evolving needs of their members. However, in a rush to modernize, many Credit Unions are falling into the trap of adopting a patchwork of disjointed tools that hinder their overall digital transformation efforts.
By examining the experiences of diverse industries that have undergone digital transformation, Credit Unions can learn valuable lessons on avoiding the pitfalls of a fragmented technology landscape. Take a step back and consider digital transformation as a holistic process. Evaluate integration capabilities of various tools, ensure seamless collaboration across platforms, and ultimately, achieve a unified technology stack that maximizes efficiency and enhances member experience.
Key Takeaway: A cohesive technology stack is crucial for effective digital transformation, requiring careful selection of integrated tools that enhance efficiency and member experience.
The 3 key elements for your credit union’s digital transformation?
The Credit Union industry has made a tremendous amount of progress in embracing technological advancements to stay competitive and meet the evolving needs of their members. Digital transformation, however, goes way beyond picking technology providers.
The 3 key elements are: people, processes, and technology.
By examining the experiences of diverse industries that have undergone digital transformation, Credit Unions can learn valuable lessons on avoiding the pitfalls of not having the right people in place, ignoring key processes that lead to success or failure and by selecting a fragmented technology landscape. Take a step back and consider digital transformation as a holistic process with people, processes and technology as the key ingredients to success.
Key Takeaway: Successful digital transformation in credit unions revolves around aligning people, processes, and technology to create a holistic and effective change.
How do I get my tech partners to integrate with each other?
"If you want to go fast, go alone! If you want to go far, go together!" This famous quote is fitting for a variety of different aspects in life, including the fintech world. Your main software products — i.e. your core, your LOS, your online banking providers, etc. — are all owned by private equity companies. To maximize shareholder return, companies charge for integrations. New technology upstarts choose a very different approach: these young and innovative companies combine efforts and help each other along the way to be most valuable. If startups like us show up together, we are bigger and can go further. This session will go into more depth on how to choose software products that seamlessly integrate with each other to give credit unions a unique advantage. Credit unions that embrace partnerships with upcoming software companies will outgrow and outperform their peers.
Key Takeaway: Choosing tech partners that prioritize integration can give credit unions a competitive edge, fostering a collaborative ecosystem that enhances services and member experiences.
How do I get the most out of AI decisioning?
One of the most commonly expressed opportunities for credit unions are finding efficiency gains in the consumer loan underwriting process. In today's world people crave and prioritize speed and simplicity. Everything we do today, can be done at our fingertips and with a few clicks. Instant gratification is the name of the game. The same is true for loan applications as well: the easier we make it for members to get a new loan or refinance an existing one, the more they're going to use your loan products and the more loyal they are. By applying the best practices from FinTech to your lending process, Credit unions could dominate consumer lending. AI speeds up underwriting, reduces the cost to produce a consumer loan and improves your member experience. This session will go into more depth on how to implement AI most successfully and how to leverage AI to provide FinTech-like member experiences.
Key Takeaway: Leveraging AI in loan decisioning can significantly improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance member satisfaction, aligning with modern consumers' expectations for speed and simplicity.
Members' expectations are evolving, are we?
Based on a survey of over 1200 US consumers conducted in Q1 of 2023 (repeated from a 2019 study) Attendees will learn:
- Top member worries
- How they view the difference between branch and on-line experience
- How we can leverage these insights to create actionable tactics
- How to think holistically about a multi-channel member experience
Key Takeaway: Understanding and adapting to changing member expectations, especially in terms of digital and branch experiences, is crucial for credit unions to remain relevant and responsive.
Consumer trends influencing your members’ needs + intro to design thinking
Synopsis: Join us for a double header where Natalie Crain, VP, B2B Marketing & Customer Experience Management, will cover key consumer trends, such as changing consumer expectations and what is relevant to younger consumers. Later, Alissa Pfeiffer, Senior Manager, Product Innovation Research, will share insights and a case study on how you can use design thinking, a human-centered approach to creative problem solving, to innovate in a low to no cost way at your credit union.
Afternoon session
Synopsis: Take your learnings from the Intro to Design Thinking portion of the morning session and apply them to a real-world challenge. You will be facilitated through the 5 phases of design thinking using hands-on activities and prompts, with a goal of testing into this human-centered approach to innovation.
Key Takeaway: Discover how shifting consumer trends, particularly among younger demographics, shape member needs and how applying design thinking — a human-centered problem-solving approach — can lead to innovative, cost-effective solutions tailored to these evolving expectations, enhancing member experience and satisfaction at your credit union.