December 10, 2025 • 48 mins
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 Richardson VP of Digital Products and Services at CPM Federal Credit Union , a South Carolina institution with assets around $650 million.
Here are results touted by CPM after their implementation of Cotribute tools:
- 32% increase in new accounts opened in just 90 days
- 82% reduction in manual reviews due to automated fraud detection and decisioning
- Significant time savings for staff, who are now freed from tedious remediation and cleanup
Sounds good? It gets better. The Cotribute rollout of its tools at CPM was happening so swiftly, the credit union actually asked them to slow down. I have never before heard that. You’ll find out why on the show.
You’ll also find out that there are many, many ways to catch fraudsters in the digital onboarding process.
And these are indeed the tools that Gen Z wants when launching a new relationship with a financial institution.
Listen up.
Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
Welcome to the CU2.0 podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (00:05):
Hi, and welcome to the CU2.0 podcast with big new
ideas about credit unions andconversations about innovative
technology with credit union andfintech leaders.
This podcast is brought to youby Quillo, the real-time loan
syndication network for creditunions, and by your host,
longtime credit union andfinancial technology journalist
(00:27):
Robert McGarvey.
And now the CU 2.0 podcast withRobert McGarvey.
SPEAKER_03 (00:35):
It's typically the first in-depth contact the
non-member has with a creditunion, and that's when they try
to open a new account online.
Good luck with that.
The brutal fact is that digitalaccount opening tools at credit
unions are inadequate.
An upshot is a stampede ofwould-be members who simply
abandon the process.
They quit.
(00:56):
That's why today's show featuresPhilip Paul, CEO of Co-Tribute,
a developer of digital member onboarding tools, and Kathy
Richardson, VP of DigitalProducts and Services at CPM
Federal Credit Union.
A South Carolina institutionwith assets around$650 million.
Here are results touted by CPMafter their implementation of
(01:17):
Co-Tribute Tools.
A 32% increase in new accountsopened in just 90 days.
And significant time savings forstaff who now are freed from
tedious remediation and cleanup.
(01:38):
Sounds good.
It gets better.
The co-tribute rollout of itstools at CPM was happening so
swiftly, the credit unionactually asked them to slow
down.
I've never before heard thatabout a tech vendor from a
credit union.
Never.
You'll find out why CPM askedfor the slowdown on the show.
(01:59):
You'll also find out that thereare many, many ways to catch
fraudsters in the digitalonboarding process.
It's not a Wild West.
And these are indeed the toolsthat Gen Z wants when launching
a new relationship with afinancial institution.
Listen up.
Oh no, I'm I'm very interestedin this topic, as I'm sure you
(02:19):
know, or AI tells me thatthere's a recent McKinsey report
that says approximately 75% ofcredit unions have really crappy
uh digital onboarding tools, ifany at all.
So how big is the problem as yousee it?
SPEAKER_00 (02:36):
Uh, you know, it's actually a pretty significant
problem, Robert.
And the reason is this when wetalk to financial institutions
and credit unions, you know, alot of them had to get something
in place uh during the COVIDera.
And they basically took whateverprocess they had and just
digitized it.
But it really doesn't help themcompete with the Chimes and the
(02:58):
Moneylines and the other folksout there.
So I think it's a pretty, prettysignificant problem that they're
trying to solve.
SPEAKER_02 (03:06):
What prompted CPM to go down this route so um CPM,
just much like Philip uh uh justmentioned, is we were forced to
kind of get in the digital spaceuh with COVID and we weren't
ready.
Um so what we did was exactlywhat he said.
We we took what we knew we didin branch and we tried to
(03:29):
duplicate that process in anonline experience.
Um, and so that worked for us,um for what we were looking to
accomplish, which was to givethat channel or to get that
channel out there for folks tobe able to join the credit
union.
And um, what we realized um afew years down the road is that
we weren't gaining uh themembership that or we weren't
(03:53):
increasing our membership to theonline channel as as rapidly as
we could, you know.
And so we were okay with um kindof the volume in the beginning
because it was it was new forus.
So we were just kind of gettingour feet wet and we were
comfortable.
Um, but then um just last yearwe were looking to um, you know,
(04:14):
kind of grow that area of thecredit union um and really dig
into that digital space and andbe more attractive in that
space.
And so that's why we startedlooking um at other players in
the field.
SPEAKER_03 (04:28):
Now what's your field of membership?
SPEAKER_02 (04:32):
Um for the for CPM Federal Credit Union, our field
of membership is um we kind ofhave uh along the areas in the
South Carolina, obviously, we'rein the upstate um South
Carolina, and then we also havebranches and field of membership
in Bufort, Bluffton, um, andthen Orangeburg and Charleston.
SPEAKER_03 (04:55):
Now, does a person have to have a relationship with
a seg to become a member?
SPEAKER_02 (05:01):
So they we do have segs, yes, sir.
Um and those are in in all areaswe have segs that create
eligibility um for themembership.
And then we also have um theunderserved communities and we
have those in the upstate,Orangeburg, um, and in the um
Charleston area.
And also in the Beaufer area,sorry.
SPEAKER_03 (05:23):
So you have uh fairly specific membership
requirements compared to somecredit unions.
SPEAKER_02 (05:29):
We do.
Um, we also have the ability fora member.
So if someone wants to be amember of the credit union and
they don't or can't join, umqualify for membership through
their family member where theywork um or live, work, and
worship in one of thoseunderserved areas, um, we have
the firefighters association umthat allows the member to join
(05:52):
for$10.
Um, and then they can be amember of the credit union.
So we we kind of have a littlebit of a way for if they don't
meet those qualifications um,you know, through field of
membership, uh, then we havethat that way for them to join.
So we we kind of we do get a lotof traffic through that through
that piece there.
SPEAKER_03 (06:10):
I I'm a big fan of what I call backdoors to entry.
And and that's because that'show I got into the the the
credit union I'm in many yearsago.
I knew the CEO and he said, Whyaren't you a member?
And I said, I'm not in one ofyour segments, man.
He said, Ah, if you give X bucksto this uh New Jersey wetlands
fund or something, a fairlysmall amount of money, and I'm
(06:34):
all for preserving the NewJersey wetlands.
So I said, Great, I'm in.
Boom.
And it was that simple.
So it's uh so I I'm a fan ofthese things, and uh and it is
it's a back door to entry, butit works.
So now, how long did it take youto implement the co-tribute
(06:54):
solutions?
SPEAKER_02 (06:58):
Well, so coderibute could work a little bit faster
than what we were comfortablewith, and and so we um we did
push back a little bit on our golive date, and like again,
nothing on the cotribute end.
SPEAKER_03 (07:11):
No, I I I've never heard this before, really.
I mean this is a first wherewhere the the credit union says,
hey, the vendor is moving fasterthan we want.
SPEAKER_02 (07:22):
Oh yeah, they were, you know, we were we were just
after signed contract.
It was they they could movepretty quickly through the
integrations and the APIconnections.
And so um they kind of put itput put together kind of like a
baseline and and showed that tous.
And then of course we had tocritique it.
And I will say our vendor ummanagement and select and
(07:43):
selection process takes a littlebit longer than most.
So we we do like to comb througha lot of that.
So kind of our back-end processin the credit union um to
onboard a new vendor takes takesa little bit of time.
Um, and so CodeTribute was readyto go from contract signing.
Um, and then that for us, we'rekind of you know just digging
into the details.
(08:03):
And so um it took us um right atum maybe a little less than a
year um for us to go live.
Um, but it but again,CodeTribute already had that
platform, the baseline there forus within their um promised
timeline of 60 to 90 days.
SPEAKER_03 (08:23):
That that is a fantastic story, really.
And how long, how long did ittake you to select a vendor?
SPEAKER_02 (08:31):
Um, I'm trying to remember when we first started
this process.
Um We did we did a good bit ofwe did a good bit of uh fielding
out kind of some of the vendorsin the space and and trying to
connect with those.
Um let me let me see here realquick.
(08:52):
We started wow, started this inaround August of 2023, and we
signed the contract withCoTribute in April of 2024.
SPEAKER_03 (09:07):
Well, I've I've often told fintechs, they'll
say, Oh, we had a great meetingwith credit union XYZ.
And I said, Well, if it's a no,you might hear in a month or so.
If it's a yes, it could take ayear.
And they say, That's notpossible.
And I said, Oh, that's actuallynormal.
Am I right about that?
(09:28):
Yes, I think you are, Robert.
I mean, credit unions are quitedeliberate about these choices.
It's uh and how many creditunions are are customers of
yours?
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
Uh about 50.
And and I think you know, thethe interesting Robert, I I
think the reason we like creditunions is um, you know, they
they collaborate, you know, andlike you know, banks who might,
you know, compete with eachother, collect credit unions
collaborate.
So if you do a good job with,you know, one of them, you know,
they let the other folks know.
(10:02):
So we we appreciate that.
So our focus is, you know, howdo we make them successful?
How do we make our clientssuccessful?
And that's our primary focus.
SPEAKER_03 (10:10):
You're absolutely right.
Credit unions, a happy creditunion customer can become an
evangelist for fintech.
I I know quite a few credit,very senior credit union
executives who will collar uhpeers of theirs at meetings
saying, Yeah, so why are youstill using that crappy
software?
You should be using this.
I mean, it's I can't imagine abanker saying this to somebody
(10:32):
unless they're lying and thesoftware really is crappy that
they're using.
Hey, you should be using this,man.
That's that's the credit unionpeople really like to talk up
good vendors.
That's uh now when you win acontract, why do you win it?
SPEAKER_00 (10:52):
Um, you know, it's interesting, Robert.
One of the things we actually umthe philosophy we have is at the
end of the day, it's not ourabout us or our products, it's
really about the our client andthe problems that they're
looking to solve.
So we put a big focus onoutcomes.
Um so we we work with clients onthat really to see, hey, are you
(11:15):
getting you know five times moremembers?
Are you reducing your uh backoffice manual work by 80%?
You know, that's what we'refocused on.
Um so I think a lot of times thereason we win is you know, we're
able to show outcomes and andreally let the product speak for
itself.
That's that's a that's a bigpiece.
The second piece is for us, youknow, we don't just implement,
(11:39):
we want to be partners with ourclients.
So we have quarterly executivereviews with clients.
We're looking at proactivelylooking at what knobs and dials
can they turn to get betteroutcomes.
Um so I think those two I thinkset us apart.
So anytime we get into acompetitive environment and you
(11:59):
know they actually want to talkto our clients, you know, we
come out on top just because youknow our technology is you know
really good, but we focus a loton outcomes.
SPEAKER_03 (12:08):
What kinds of outcomes?
SPEAKER_00 (12:11):
So I could share a few different ones.
The number one thing, if youlook at operational efficiency,
um there are a lot of thingsthat you have to do in the
background, you know, just tomake sure uh that you don't get
fraudulent folks in.
As you can imagine with digitalonboarding, it sounds very
simple.
Uh, but if you want to reallymake it super simple for the
(12:33):
prospective member to come in,but super hard for a fraudster
to come in, you know, there's alot of different things that you
have to do.
Um so operational efficiency onthe back end, you know, making
sure that the manual steps theyhave to do for fraud checks or
KYC, KYB, you know, all of thosethings we automate.
So that's one big outcome thatwe focus on, um, the operational
(12:55):
efficiency.
The second one we focus on isgrowth.
And here we look at a couple ofdifferent things.
One is just the actual newmembership growth.
You know, what is it now?
What was it six months from sixmonths ago?
And and we've seen up to 5xincrease in new memberships, you
know, within the first sixmonths.
So that's an important piecethat we look at in terms of
(13:15):
growth.
The third one we look at is youknow, actual deposits.
So when a new member comes in,you know, what's the average,
you know, new deposits, youknow, and and we've seen you
know very easily, you know,10,000 new deposits per new
member.
We've seen 70% reduction inemployee processing time in the
back end.
And and then the last one welook at is you know, what are
their goals?
(13:36):
We see a lot of credit insaying, hey, we want to engage
with younger members.
And and we've seen clients wherethe digital channel has become
the number one channel more thanall the branches put together.
Uh, and that's because they'regoing after the younger folks
and they want to get them indigitally.
So those are some of the metricsthat we actually look at.
SPEAKER_03 (13:55):
Now, what how big is your focus on after opening
activity?
A complaint I've heard from manycredit units, not regarding your
product, but the the the the prothe kind of products in general,
is yeah, we have this G Wizthing that opens up accounts
pretty easily, and then nothing.
(14:16):
You know, they put the minimumamount in and nothing, nothing.
And that's I've hear I hear morecredit unions concerned about
that.
It's a good thing to beconcerned about.
SPEAKER_00 (14:29):
Absolutely.
You know, and and that's one ofthe things we've looked at, um,
Robert, is you know, we we say,hey, we're the next generation
digital origination onboardingplatform.
And and the reason is that youknow, we actually have AI agents
that not only help on theacquisition side, hey, who are
the right prospective members?
What are the segments, that'sthat kind of thing.
(14:51):
But also cross-selling orupselling.
So you came in for an auto loanat the highest point of interest
when you're super excited aboutjust being approved for an auto
loan, we can also say, hey, bythe way, we think you know this
and this and this might beapplicable for you based on that
credit union's products.
And so the cross-selling piece,you know, getting them to get
the second product or the thirdproduct is a big piece.
(15:12):
Then we have something called arelationship growth agent, and
that's really focused on thedormant accounts, right?
Which is somebody came in for anauto loan, they don't even know.
They they came in indirectly,they don't even know the credit
union.
But how do we take those dormantaccounts and and then make you
know make sure that they'reengaged members?
So we have some specificcapabilities around that.
So it definitely doesn't stopwith just account opening,
(15:34):
that's just one piece of it.
The cross-selling, theupselling, the relationship
growth, they're all important.
SPEAKER_03 (15:41):
Yeah, and credit unions have a psychological
problem, don't they?
When you say, well, the the newmember doesn't have to come in
to do the account opening.
Kathy, how how did your creditunion deal with that?
In or in aspects of thepsychological problem of saying
(16:07):
you're opening an account, youdon't have to come in to
complete this.
A lot of credit unions 10 yearsago had tools online, but then
at the end of the day, you'd hitroadblock and they'd say, Oh,
just come on down.
Say, wait, no, I'm trying to dothis all digitally.
Uh no, no, just come down, it'llbe quicker.
(16:28):
Um I guess I think they wantedto see if I was a human being.
SPEAKER_02 (16:33):
Right.
Yeah, and we we still have thosethose members that that like
those people that potentiallywant to join the credit union
that want to physically walk in,walk into the branch.
So we we do switch.
SPEAKER_03 (16:44):
I'm I'm more interested in the ones who don't
want to walk, walk in.
SPEAKER_02 (16:48):
Right, yeah.
And and so yeah, we we certainlyhave the those as well.
And I think a lot of the abilitynow um is because we have kind
of the, as you mentioned, backdoor.
Um, you know, our field ofmembership is is right in the
states, you know, SouthCarolina.
Um, and we see, you know, someNorth Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Virginia, um, we seefolks in those areas, but um,
(17:10):
you know, having the online umaccount opening has uh we we do
see folks um from California, wesee folks from up north and and
having that ability to go outonline and they like our
mortgage rates.
And so now, you know, they're inNew York and they want to apply
for a mortgage with CPM becausethey like our mortgage rates.
Uh they can open their accountonline, don't have to come into
(17:32):
the branch and they can applyfor their mortgage and they're
all set.
SPEAKER_03 (17:38):
Philip, how do you how do you assure the credit
union or reassure the creditunion that we've this is
actually a real living person?
We've we've validated that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:48):
Yeah.
You know, Robert, I just want totouch on the previous question
you asked.
You know, is that a differentmindset?
I think one of the things I findis uh the fastest growing credit
unions aren't you know small,they aren't big.
They're the ones that arethinking differently.
So to your point about, hey, isthat a normal thing for credit
unions to ask people to come in?
(18:09):
It's actually changing.
The fastest growing ones arebasically saying, hey, we need
to support the member where theyare.
You know, they could start atthe branch, they could go finish
on their phone, they could startat their desktop, come and
finish the branch, or they coulddo the whole thing on their
mobile phone, right?
It's really meeting the memberswhere they are and what they're
most comfortable with.
You know, that's what they'redoing.
In terms of your question abouthow do we make sure that this is
(18:31):
the right person, we we have anumber of different technologies
that we employ and we do thatyou know different ways.
So there's liveness checks, it'sfraud checks, there's different
ways of doing it, you know, withID, without IDs, there are
different ways of doing it.
So one of the things we do is wegive credit unions options,
right?
You could do it at the frontdoor or you could do it at the
back door, you could do it basedon the product.
(18:52):
You know, for these kinds ofproducts, we actually want them
to come in and fill theapplication, then we'll
actually, you know, do all thatstuff.
So there's a lot of knobs andlevers that the credit unions
can use based on products, uh,based on you know their
philosophy on what they feel isimportant.
But what we give them isanalytics.
So they could really look at,hey, what's actually happening?
If I do a liveness check upfront, what happens?
(19:14):
Is that really necessary forthis product?
You know, they so they have allthe tools and capabilities to be
able to do that.
SPEAKER_03 (19:21):
Yeah, I'm I'm I remember about 13 years ago, I
moved across country into adifferent state and got letters
from various banks saying, hey,come on down.
One included a very interestingthing, it was a little coupon
for like 200 bucks or something,400 bucks, I forget.
Just for opening the account.
(19:41):
And they had digital on accountopening, so I opened an account.
But to get to 200 bucks, I hadto bring the coupon into the
bank.
Which I I I retrospectively Ithink is pure genius.
Yeah, it was it was literally ahalf mile from where I lived, it
was no big deal.
Uh and at the time I thought,well, this is a bit of a
(20:03):
nuisance, but what yeah, it's200 bucks.
I mean, ain't gonna kill me.
So and they got to say, hey, I'mreally alive, and I I seem to
look more or less the age I'mclaiming to be.
Yeah, okay.
So I mean, am I being paranoidor were they actually doing
that?
SPEAKER_00 (20:20):
Yeah, creepings now.
I mean, these things they'revery sophisticated, Robert.
We give them the tools to besophisticated.
So, in some cases, um, you know,for example, denials, right, on
a loan application, there areinstances where they'll say,
hey, you know, we really ordon't want to deny it, let's put
in a review queue, let them comein, let's actually talk to them
and then figure out, you know,should we actually deny them or
(20:43):
should we actually approve them?
So I think there are instanceswhen, you know, you may actually
want them to come in just so youcould actually get to know their
situation a little better.
But uh again, if you have aplatform that gives you all the
capabilities where you canactually decide how you want to
configure it, then then you havethe option.
You have the option of changingit, you know, um, you know, as
(21:04):
you get more data.
SPEAKER_03 (21:06):
Now, Philip, how do you uh you're gonna get to do a
little sales pitch here?
Uh a credit union, I'm lookingat your your tools and say two
others, the finalists.
Why is yours better?
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
So there are a few different reasons for that,
Robert.
I think the the number one thingI would say is our outcomes are
better um than than what we'veseen out there.
And you know, our customers haveactually told us that.
I think the second piece isthis, you know, you touched on a
simple thing when we started theconversation about SEGs.
(21:44):
You know, Kathy, you know, doyou have to be part of a seg to
actually come in?
See, one of the things we'rehearing from our customers more
and more is our platform isvery, very configurable, and
it's a low-code, no-code uhplatform.
So the which basically says, youknow, Kathy and her team of
business users who areauthorized can go in and make
(22:06):
changes to the flows.
They could change the copy, theycould change, you know, a lot of
things like that.
If Kathy's team has a huge ITteam, we give them a developer
portal so they could goconfigure it as much as they
want.
But the the benefit is we givethem complete configurability.
So if you're part of a seg, wegive them the ability to
(22:27):
co-brand it with the seg orprivate label it to the seg.
We give them the ability toembed these flows anywhere you
know within the seg.
So we give them not only acapability to onboard people,
but really to a broadercapability to distribute their
financial products across theirown whole digital ecosystem of
partners.
So that's another you know,differentiator.
(22:49):
You know, we I remember a bankclient of ours, you know, said
that.
They went through an RFPprocess, got the top three, and
did all the, and you know, theother two are much bigger than
us.
But really, they came down tothis and said, hey, you guys are
much more configurable and yougive us the tools to be able to
configure it.
If I want just something thatworks out of the box, that's set
(23:10):
a certain way, then you knowthere are others out there.
So that's one piece.
And then I think the last pieceis um the use of AI.
AI is probably the most overusedterm there is, and and we
actually get annoyed by it.
But if we use AI for the rightuse cases, it can be pretty
powerful.
So the way we use AI, we usegenerative AI, we use
(23:32):
deterministic AI.
Um, and the deterministic AI isthe explainable ball.
Think of it as a glass box,right?
So it makes decisions for you,but it tells you why it made a
certain decision.
So it's explainable, auditable,you can explain it to auditors.
So I think the the fact that wehave generative AI, agentic AI,
deterministic AI, and the righthuman in the loop process, I
(23:56):
think that's a secret sauce thatwe have that we haven't seen our
competitors have.
That's that's at least what ourour customers are telling us.
SPEAKER_03 (24:05):
Uh Kathy, would you agree with this?
SPEAKER_02 (24:09):
Certainly.
That was one of the reasons thethe configurability and the
customization um and havingaccess to to make those changes
ourselves was very conconvenient.
Um in the space we were before.
We had to submit supporttickets, and then you know, that
had to become a project, andthen there were costs involved.
And so it was very attractivethat with the Cotribute
(24:31):
platform, we could go in and wecan maintenance those screens.
If we saw something that maybeum was, you know, not catching
someone's eye.
We want to change a visual, wewant to change the tone, we want
to change colors.
Um, we have the ability to dothat at our fingertips with just
a simple login.
And um, that was very attractiveto us.
SPEAKER_03 (24:52):
How did you do the final testing for this product?
And yeah, if you're doing like anew fancy dancy uh debit card,
usually the final testing is alarge employee group.
That wouldn't work in this case,would it?
I mean, how did how did what wasthe final thing where you said,
wow, this really does work?
SPEAKER_02 (25:11):
So what we did was we did a um kind of a soft
launch and we allowed our um inbranch uh FSRs to walk through
the online account opening uhthe onboarding link with um
opening in a member account inthe branch.
And so we were able to test thatexperience, uh, making sure
everything mapped as it should.
(25:32):
Um so you know, certainly thatall the as were dotted, the T's
were crossed and everything.
Once we were able to launchthis, was was we were we were
gonna work those things andeverything would connect to the
core as it as it should.
And so having the ability to umleverage that in the branches uh
allowed us to, if there were anydisconnects, um the member
(25:52):
wouldn't know and they couldswitch right back to the core
and their old process, and thataccount would be open.
So that was a very convenientway for us to kind of um pilot
this process.
SPEAKER_03 (26:03):
Now, do you have account opening both on online
on a computer and in a digitalphone?
SPEAKER_02 (26:11):
Correct.
So the plat the Cotributeplatform works on both
experiences.
Um you can use a desktop login,a web browser login, or you can
do it in your mobile phone.
And one of the other attractivethings about Cotribute is that
experience looks the same.
And so um, you know, it thescreens will minimize and
maximize depending on the memberexperience and what device
(26:32):
they're using.
So each person using differentdevices is going to see the same
screens, the same pictures.
Um, everything looks similar.
SPEAKER_03 (26:41):
Do you have any uh data about uh what members are
prefer to use?
In other words, do you have morephone or more web?
SPEAKER_02 (26:51):
That is not a data point that we have um been
tracking or have access to thatI'm aware of.
SPEAKER_03 (26:58):
Philip, do you track that?
Not necessarily for this creditunion, but in general.
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
Um actually we we do um track that, Robert, and and
it varies based on region, basedon product, um, you know, based
on the credit union brand, basedon the demographic that they're
targeting, a lot of differentthings.
But I think um one interestingthing that you know Kathy was
sharing was um the number of youknow support requests that came
(27:24):
in from people that were comingin.
I thought, Kathy, that was umreally interesting what you
shared before.
That might be relevant toRobert's question as well, in
terms of the support requestsfrom prospective members that
are going through the flow.
SPEAKER_02 (27:37):
Certainly.
So when we we have members, um,well, our contact center
obviously fields the calls.
And so in our past experience,um, we received several calls.
Um, and there were lots of callsof members getting stuck in the
flow.
Um, you know, their device wasnot compatible to take the
picture of the driver's license.
Um, uh, you know, they werehaving trouble.
(27:58):
Most people who were using adesktop were trying to scan
their driver's license.
Um, and so with the Codeributeplatform, when they get to the
identity verification piece, um,one of the things that is
convenient is that again, everymember has the same experience.
And because of the Platintegration, um, the member just
(28:18):
simply scans a QR code and andit walks them through the
process.
So it's it's very automated.
Um, it prompts them on what theyneed to do.
And so that has drasticallyreduced the number of calls that
we receive in regards toquestions about our
applications, members gettingstuck in the application.
Um, and those again, uh, youknow, that takes that volume out
(28:41):
of the out of our contact centerand allows them to fill those
calls for you know other issuesthat the members may have.
SPEAKER_03 (28:48):
Well, Philip, uh off-beat question, but does a
SEG add complexity to yourprocess?
In other words, it's fairly easyto get a driver's license or
something like that.
If I claim that my my father isa retiree of such and such
corporation, so I'm I'meligible.
How do you verify that?
SPEAKER_00 (29:09):
If you think of it, seg is just a different channel
that the prospective member iscoming through.
Um, so we could have customflows.
So one of the things we do isum, you know, Kathy's team can
have a flow that they use in thebranch, the slightly different
one if they want to use it for aseg, a different one if they
want to use it for another SIG.
So that's one thing.
(29:29):
The other thing is because we umhave some really cool technology
on embedding with the right SEGpartners.
So let's say you had a Fortune500 company uh that was part of
your SEG, we could actuallyintegrate it right into their
portal.
So just imagine if IBM was theSEG, you could have the flows
(29:52):
embedded right into the employeeportal, in which case it makes
it even simpler because we couldget a lot of the credentials, a
lot of the identity.
The information from thatsystem.
So it makes it super simple forthem to actually onboard onto,
for example, a health savingsaccount.
SPEAKER_03 (30:08):
So what what what are you hoping to add to your
product now?
SPEAKER_00 (30:12):
You know, there are a few things that we're looking
at, Robert.
Obviously, you know, on the onthe AI growth agent side, you
know, that's a big piece, andwe're continuing to add to that.
Um, both on the acquisitionside, the cross-selling side,
and the and the relationshipgrowth side, that's that's an
important piece.
Um, and then you know, we wealso have some um new stuff.
(30:32):
As you can imagine, a lot ofpeople are going to be making
decisions not through Googlesearch anymore, but through
LLMs, right?
They'll they'll use you knowlanguage models like you know,
OpenAI or Anthropic or Cloud orsome of those to actually do
research.
So we're actually wanting tohelp embed some of these credit
(30:56):
unions, you know, products evenin those language models.
So, you know, right from asearch, if you feel that, hey, I
want to open an account here,could you actually you know open
up right away from there?
So we're looking at how do weactually help the credit unions
distribute their products evenfurther, not only through SEGs,
not only through the digitalchannels, but could they
(31:16):
actually do that even throughsome of the learning, you know,
the language models that are outthere?
SPEAKER_03 (31:21):
Hey, before this call, I asked Google Gemini what
the field of membership of thecredit union was.
Historically, I would have goneto the credit union site, but I
was cutting to the chase andGemini, just tell me what the
field is.
SPEAKER_01 (31:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (31:34):
And uh um it more or less worked, I think.
Well, it seemed to be acomplicated list of paper
companies, so which is not abusiness I know a heck of a lot
about, but we do are goingdirectly to to the uh AI agents
at this point, so right.
SPEAKER_00 (31:52):
So I think that's where we're putting a lot of our
RD now is how do we help thecredit unions make sure that
their products are embeddedthere?
They you know and they could youknow open or you know,
cross-sell, you know, rightthere.
And that's that's an importantpiece.
SPEAKER_03 (32:06):
What's the size range of your credit union
customers?
SPEAKER_00 (32:10):
Um, you know, our goal, uh Robert, with our
platform is to support any size.
Our smallest is probably 10,000members, our largest is 2.3
million members.
SPEAKER_03 (32:21):
And uh roughly what would you say the assets are?
SPEAKER_00 (32:24):
Uh AUM can range from at the low end 150 million
AUM to at the high end, um, youknow, close to 200 billion AUM.
SPEAKER_03 (32:36):
That's 150 million assets.
That's that's that's a lot ofcredit unions that you're
covering.
SPEAKER_00 (32:44):
Yeah, yeah.
And and that I think that's thebig thing, right?
I think so.
We started off on the on the bigend, so you know, with the 200
billion with you know, with a B,that's where we started.
But you know, our goal was tosay, hey, if we want to help
credit unions, we've got to beable to serve up a platform
that's cost efficient for them,but also that works with the
(33:05):
smallest credit union so theyget the tools that the large
ones have that the big bankshave.
SPEAKER_03 (33:10):
Now you also serve as banks.
So what's the difference betweenthe product for a credit union
and the product for a bank?
SPEAKER_00 (33:18):
So on the platform side, really there's no um
difference, Robert.
There's some unique things.
Uh SEG, for example, is uniqueon the credit union side.
But banks have relationships, sothey may not call it a SEG, but
they'll actually use product,they'll distribute products
through um, you know, othercompanies as well.
So that's actually you knowdifferent.
(33:38):
As you probably know,membership, you know, that whole
process is unique to you knowcredit union.
So there's some variances interms of the actual process and
the customer onboarding, but theplatform we use is the same.
SPEAKER_03 (33:51):
Um more and more credit unions have a regional
field of membership that makesit really pretty simple.
SPEAKER_00 (33:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:57):
And the real complexity with credit unions
are these backdoors.
You know, Chase does notunderstand backdoors to to uh
becoming a customer.
They'll find a way to make you acustomer.
Just walk by one a little tooslowly.
Uh and if you're wearing niceclothes, you'll be pulled in.
(34:18):
But it's uh now do you havecustomer attrition?
SPEAKER_00 (34:23):
You know, we've lost two customers uh so far, Robert.
And and one of them was becauseum of a failed you know merger
and there was some intricaciesaround that.
Another one the same way, theyactually bought a credit union
that had a really, really longum contract, and you know, so
they had to you know take that.
So that's that's that's thoseare ones that we've actually
(34:47):
lost.
But again, we're grateful to ourcredit union, you know,
customers who trust us, and soyou know, we don't take that
trust lightly.
We want to earn that trust andwe want to keep that trust.
SPEAKER_03 (34:59):
Do you need core integration?
SPEAKER_00 (35:02):
We do.
So we're integrated withCorrelation, we're integrated
with Jack Hendry, with uhScimitar, with Silver Lake,
we're integrated with Pfizer,with Portico, with DNA, we're
integrated with most of thedigital banking providers that
are out there.
You know, Bano is a goodexample.
Um, so yeah, we and and alsowith the LOSs as well.
(35:22):
So uh you already have thosetools, obviously.
Yeah, you know, and that's why,you know, like Kathy initially
was talking about the the speed.
I think our fastestimplementation has been 19 days.
Um then you know, just this pastweek, you know, we actually
turned around a bank and it was45 days for the complete you
(35:44):
know consumer loan applicationacross you know multiple
products.
And the reason is because wehave all the all these
integrations built in.
We have 90 plus you knowproducts, deposit products, loan
products, investment products,you know, wealth management
products, insurance products,all uh best in class flows
defined.
So you could take it and veryquickly modify it and then
(36:05):
launch very quickly with it.
SPEAKER_03 (36:07):
And how long did it take you to develop your core
middleware?
SPEAKER_00 (36:13):
We did a lot of you know, payment processing work,
Robert, for about four or fiveyears.
The the last part, which is thelast five years, have been
focused just on this, on all theintegrations on the digital
onboarding.
Because as you imagine as youcan imagine, you know, having to
support small credit unions,large ones, small banks, large
banks, there's a lot ofdifferent nuances, a lot of
(36:35):
different integrations.
So we've been working hard at itfor about five years now.
SPEAKER_03 (36:39):
Yeah, I just I covered uh mobile banking's
rollout in the credit unionworld.
And what was funny was a lot ofthese companies would have one
or two toolkits.
And you could call up and they'dsay, Okay, what's your core?
Oh, we don't have that.
Uh well, is there a problem?
No, there's no problems becauseit could cost a lot of money to
pay us to develop integrationtools, yeah.
(37:01):
And uh, and that often ended theconversation right there, so
which was unfortunate.
But by now, enough enoughvendors do have uh a pretty big
range of cores that they'reintegrated to.
You have a complaint aboutcredit union customers.
What is it?
Other than they take them a longtime to make a decision.
SPEAKER_00 (37:25):
No, I I I think you know, actually, we we don't have
any um complaints, Robert.
And I think even on theacquisition process, I think we
we appreciate the rigor and thedeliberate nature of how
thoughtful they are.
Uh and and we appreciate thatbecause at the end of the day,
um, the worst thing that canhappen is somebody, you know,
picks us quickly and for somereason it's not a good fit.
(37:47):
Um, so we we take thoserelationships very seriously.
So we're actually verydeliberate and thoughtful in
terms of sharing what we can doand what we can't do.
And and we're so grateful foryou know, Kathy and her team at
CPM um for you know just thepartnership that they've had
with us and and and working withus.
So we're grateful for theseopportunities.
SPEAKER_03 (38:09):
Now, Kathy, with with this uh contribute
technology in place, are youlooking around?
Is the credit union lookingaround saying, geez, we have
this spiffy uh onboardingprocess here?
Now we really ought to beupgrading X, Y, and Z.
So you you you buy a new, nicenew, really modern refrigerator.
(38:32):
It even talks to you.
Then you look at your your yourstove and you say, God, that
thing's old.
I want to get a new one.
I mean, you follow my logichere.
Is are you experiencing any ofthat at the credit union?
SPEAKER_02 (38:45):
Certainly.
I think that with technology,that software is always changing
and um integrations and vendorsare always coming with with new
things.
So um, you know, as contractsare up for renewal, we're always
looking to see, you know, what'sin that space.
Are we, you know, where we are,is is that up to date?
Is that the most modern, youknow, thing, or do they have the
(39:08):
technologies?
I think we look more now as notnecessarily stay because we're
comfortable, but you know, whatother vendors are in this space
and what vendors are growing inthat space?
Um, we always want to look forforward-thinking vendors because
again, the things and systemsand technologies are are ever
changing and and growing andrapidly.
(39:29):
Um so, yes, certainly, um, whenwe have any contracts that are
coming up for renewal, um, evenif they're not, you know, if we
if we see something out there inthis space, um, we always share
that internally.
Um, you know, hey, this is thisis out there.
So you may want to keep that inyour back pocket if your
contract, you know, expires in afew years and start looking, you
know, for future umintegrations.
SPEAKER_03 (39:52):
Who do you benchmark your technology against?
What what kind of you don't evenhave to name the credit unions,
but give me some idea of theirsize, or maybe you're using
banks.
SPEAKER_02 (40:03):
No, typically we look for other credit unions in
our market um and other creditunions about our size to see
kind of what they're whatthey're doing.
Um and we we also look at othercredit unions that have other
partners or other vendors orconnections.
And so um one of the things thatwe looked for when we were
looking for the online accountum vendor is we we looked at
(40:27):
core, you know, who else is onour core.
We looked at our online bankingum providers.
So those are huge when you thinkabout um looking for a new
vendor, not just comparing umcredit unions in your area, but
more more so credit unions thatare similar to you who have some
of the same systems that youhave.
Um, because just as Phillipssaid, those integrations are
(40:50):
important um when it when youcome down the line.
So again, not just getting thatmember onboarded, but what can
you do after that member'sonboarded?
Um, if you have an integrationto our online banking, can we
get them set up with an onlineaccount and then you know move
them right into registering foronline banking?
Um, that's something that we'reworking towards um here in the
(41:11):
next quarter.
So I think, yeah, looking atcredit unions, our size in our
market, um, but also creditunions that are similar in in
some of the software and theintegrations and partners they
have.
SPEAKER_03 (41:23):
Now, I everything you said there was good and
makes perfect sense.
But at this point in theconversation, I usually say, and
you get to curse at me if youwant to, you gotta be comparing
yourself not just to them, butto Chase, to Chime, to monsters
in this field, because more andmore financial service customers
(41:44):
are going to those institutionsin part because the technology
is just so damn good.
SPEAKER_02 (41:50):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (41:52):
Yeah, so do you look at them?
SPEAKER_02 (41:54):
We do, we do.
I think as a credit union, we'rea little bit more conservative.
SPEAKER_03 (41:58):
Um, and and so there's a lot of risks, I think,
in some of those um, some ofthose fintechs can lose money
for the next hundred years andstill stay in business.
That they but Chase can't.
SPEAKER_02 (42:10):
Yeah, so we certainly have to compete with
them.
Um, but I think that that's kindof where we we see that um, you
know, this is the a lot of thefintechs in the space, um, you
know, as a consumer, um, peopleare just attractive to what it
offers to them and notnecessarily when we're when
you're on the other side of thatin the credit union space and
(42:32):
and you're looking out for yourmembers and protecting them.
Um, I think that you have to youhave to be cognitive of what's
in the space.
But we we can't we can't competein that same space as it relates
to certain risks andcompliance-wise.
SPEAKER_03 (42:52):
Um elaborate a little bit about the compliance.
SPEAKER_02 (42:56):
Well, that's huge for the CPM team, and and Philip
can probably share some of thatwith you as far as is our
integration.
So we still very much like to tohave all the checks and
balances.
Um, and so when he mentionedearlier in the conversation
about non-documentary versusdocumentary identification, um,
we know that that's that's athat's a that's kind of a
(43:19):
drop-off rate or a spot in theapplication, is some folks are
going to abandon yourapplication when you ask them to
verify their identity um with apiece of you know, a
government-issued ID.
And so um all we know thatcompetitors in that space are
not asking those questions orthey may forego that step, but
(43:40):
in the credit union, that'simportant to us.
And so that is something that werequire on 100% of our
applications.
Um, and and so we have to kindof balance that, right?
Um, and so we're we're notwilling, our compliance team is
not willing to let that go.
And so we, you know, we had tosatisfy that um ask.
SPEAKER_03 (44:00):
Well, let's be honest, phones have made it
easier for the consumer tocomply with that.
Yeah, historically, how do Iscan my driver's license?
Where do I go?
What do I do?
Well, now you just snap apicture of it or something.
Philip, uh, compliance, how isthat an issue for you?
SPEAKER_00 (44:17):
Yeah, you you know, I think this is a very
interesting topic, uh, Robert.
And this is one area where Ithink we're adding a lot of
value to our credit unionpartners.
And the reason is this, if youreally look at it, um,
compliance in this one end ofthe spectrum, right?
How do you manage risk?
And the other end of thespectrum is how do you actually
make it super easy for people tocome in where you know you ask
(44:40):
them the very minimum stuffbased on what you do.
I think that's one of the areaswhere we've actually shown, hey,
what are Chime and Moneyline andRobinhood doing where they, you
know, some of them don't havethe compliance needs, but some
of them do.
Some of them are regulatedentities.
So looking at, hey, what isChase doing?
What is you know um uh wellsFargo doing and bringing some of
(45:01):
those best practices in is partof what we do as well as you
know in the implementationprocess.
And I think to Kathy's point,you know, there are some folks
in compliance who have maybe adated view of how they look at
things.
But I think it's it's really youknow going through and helping
them understand what other folksare doing.
And and we're seeing a lot of umsuccess with credit unions where
(45:22):
they'll actually say, hey, let'slook at this together for these
kinds of products.
Um, we don't need to do this,this, and this.
For example, if they're alreadyan existing member and they're
asking for a credit card, wedon't need to do all of these
things because we know certainthings about them.
So there's something, so we havewhat we uh call you know
conditional approval, thosekinds of things.
(45:43):
We have a lot of ways wherebased on product, based on who
it is, you could have knobs anddials that you could turn.
So you make the friction as lowas possible.
But for the right products,making sure that all the
compliance checks are you knowdouble and triple checked.
So the the trick is you knowunderstanding that we do compete
with other regulated entitieswho figured out how to make it
(46:05):
frictionless.
And and we have to you know dothat as well.
SPEAKER_03 (46:09):
Does either of you have something you've been dying
to say that I wasn't smartenough to ask you?
And if you do, now's yourchance.
SPEAKER_00 (46:15):
No, this has been a great conversation, Robert.
I appreciate it and uhappreciate the work that you all
are doing at C2.0 as well is youknow, really educating all your
listeners on you know what'snew, what's exciting, what are
people doing, what are bestpractices.
So we appreciate that.
SPEAKER_03 (46:30):
So, Kathy, you don't have anything to say, or do you
do have something to say?
SPEAKER_02 (46:34):
Well, no, I know likewise I want to thank you for
the opportunity to do this, andI think that it's been great
conversation.
Um, I think one of the thingsthat we didn't mention or
discuss, and I'd and I'dcertainly like to draw attention
to it, is one of the one of thegame changers for CPM has been
the the fraud tools that theCo-Tribute platform offers.
(46:56):
And so um just a quick littletidbit on that is um their fraud
tools have significantlyimproved our operational
efficiency um by reducing ourstaff hours that we previously
spent on um post-fraudremediation and account cleanup.
So uh right now we're not seeingum those fraud accounts hit the
(47:17):
core.
And so we we are certainlyappreciative of those tools that
come along with the Cotributeplatform.
SPEAKER_03 (47:26):
Before we go, think hard about how you can help
support this podcast so we cando more interviews with more
thoughtful leaders in the creditunion world.
What we're trying to figure outhere in these podcasts is what's
next for credit unions.
What can they do to really,really, really make a difference
in the financial scene?
Can't all be mega banks, can it?
(47:48):
It's my hope it won't all bemega banks.
It'll always be a place forcredit unions.
That's what we're discussinghere.
So figure out how you can help.
Get in touch with me.
This is RJ McGarvey atgmail.com, Robert McGarvey
again.
That's RJ McGarvey at gmail.com.
Get in touch, we'll figure out away that you can help.
We need your support, we wantyour support, we thank you for
(48:11):
your support.
The CU2.0 podcast.
Welcome to the CU2.0 podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (00:05):
Hi, and welcome to the CU2.0 podcast with big new
ideas about credit unions andconversations about innovative
technology with credit union andfintech leaders.
This podcast is brought to youby Quillo, the real-time loan
syndication network for creditunions, and by your host,
longtime credit union andfinancial technology journalist
(00:27):
Robert McGarvey.
And now the CU 2.0 podcast withRobert McGarvey.
SPEAKER_03 (00:35):
It's typically the first in-depth contact the
non-member has with a creditunion, and that's when they try
to open a new account online.
Good luck with that.
The brutal fact is that digitalaccount opening tools at credit
unions are inadequate.
An upshot is a stampede ofwould-be members who simply
abandon the process.
They quit.
(00:56):
That's why today's show featuresPhilip Paul, CEO of Co-Tribute,
a developer of digital member onboarding tools, and Kathy
Richardson, VP of DigitalProducts and Services at CPM
Federal Credit Union.
A South Carolina institutionwith assets around$650 million.
Here are results touted by CPMafter their implementation of
(01:17):
Co-Tribute Tools.
A 32% increase in new accountsopened in just 90 days.
And significant time savings forstaff who now are freed from
tedious remediation and cleanup.
(01:38):
Sounds good.
It gets better.
The co-tribute rollout of itstools at CPM was happening so
swiftly, the credit unionactually asked them to slow
down.
I've never before heard thatabout a tech vendor from a
credit union.
Never.
You'll find out why CPM askedfor the slowdown on the show.
(01:59):
You'll also find out that thereare many, many ways to catch
fraudsters in the digitalonboarding process.
It's not a Wild West.
And these are indeed the toolsthat Gen Z wants when launching
a new relationship with afinancial institution.
Listen up.
Oh no, I'm I'm very interestedin this topic, as I'm sure you
(02:19):
know, or AI tells me thatthere's a recent McKinsey report
that says approximately 75% ofcredit unions have really crappy
uh digital onboarding tools, ifany at all.
So how big is the problem as yousee it?
SPEAKER_00 (02:36):
Uh, you know, it's actually a pretty significant
problem, Robert.
And the reason is this when wetalk to financial institutions
and credit unions, you know, alot of them had to get something
in place uh during the COVIDera.
And they basically took whateverprocess they had and just
digitized it.
But it really doesn't help themcompete with the Chimes and the
(02:58):
Moneylines and the other folksout there.
So I think it's a pretty, prettysignificant problem that they're
trying to solve.
SPEAKER_02 (03:06):
What prompted CPM to go down this route so um CPM,
just much like Philip uh uh justmentioned, is we were forced to
kind of get in the digital spaceuh with COVID and we weren't
ready.
Um so what we did was exactlywhat he said.
We we took what we knew we didin branch and we tried to
(03:29):
duplicate that process in anonline experience.
Um, and so that worked for us,um for what we were looking to
accomplish, which was to givethat channel or to get that
channel out there for folks tobe able to join the credit
union.
And um, what we realized um afew years down the road is that
we weren't gaining uh themembership that or we weren't
(03:53):
increasing our membership to theonline channel as as rapidly as
we could, you know.
And so we were okay with um kindof the volume in the beginning
because it was it was new forus.
So we were just kind of gettingour feet wet and we were
comfortable.
Um, but then um just last yearwe were looking to um, you know,
(04:14):
kind of grow that area of thecredit union um and really dig
into that digital space and andbe more attractive in that
space.
And so that's why we startedlooking um at other players in
the field.
SPEAKER_03 (04:28):
Now what's your field of membership?
SPEAKER_02 (04:32):
Um for the for CPM Federal Credit Union, our field
of membership is um we kind ofhave uh along the areas in the
South Carolina, obviously, we'rein the upstate um South
Carolina, and then we also havebranches and field of membership
in Bufort, Bluffton, um, andthen Orangeburg and Charleston.
SPEAKER_03 (04:55):
Now, does a person have to have a relationship with
a seg to become a member?
SPEAKER_02 (05:01):
So they we do have segs, yes, sir.
Um and those are in in all areaswe have segs that create
eligibility um for themembership.
And then we also have um theunderserved communities and we
have those in the upstate,Orangeburg, um, and in the um
Charleston area.
And also in the Beaufer area,sorry.
SPEAKER_03 (05:23):
So you have uh fairly specific membership
requirements compared to somecredit unions.
SPEAKER_02 (05:29):
We do.
Um, we also have the ability fora member.
So if someone wants to be amember of the credit union and
they don't or can't join, umqualify for membership through
their family member where theywork um or live, work, and
worship in one of thoseunderserved areas, um, we have
the firefighters association umthat allows the member to join
(05:52):
for$10.
Um, and then they can be amember of the credit union.
So we we kind of have a littlebit of a way for if they don't
meet those qualifications um,you know, through field of
membership, uh, then we havethat that way for them to join.
So we we kind of we do get a lotof traffic through that through
that piece there.
SPEAKER_03 (06:10):
I I'm a big fan of what I call backdoors to entry.
And and that's because that'show I got into the the the
credit union I'm in many yearsago.
I knew the CEO and he said, Whyaren't you a member?
And I said, I'm not in one ofyour segments, man.
He said, Ah, if you give X bucksto this uh New Jersey wetlands
fund or something, a fairlysmall amount of money, and I'm
(06:34):
all for preserving the NewJersey wetlands.
So I said, Great, I'm in.
Boom.
And it was that simple.
So it's uh so I I'm a fan ofthese things, and uh and it is
it's a back door to entry, butit works.
So now, how long did it take youto implement the co-tribute
(06:54):
solutions?
SPEAKER_02 (06:58):
Well, so coderibute could work a little bit faster
than what we were comfortablewith, and and so we um we did
push back a little bit on our golive date, and like again,
nothing on the cotribute end.
SPEAKER_03 (07:11):
No, I I I've never heard this before, really.
I mean this is a first wherewhere the the credit union says,
hey, the vendor is moving fasterthan we want.
SPEAKER_02 (07:22):
Oh yeah, they were, you know, we were we were just
after signed contract.
It was they they could movepretty quickly through the
integrations and the APIconnections.
And so um they kind of put itput put together kind of like a
baseline and and showed that tous.
And then of course we had tocritique it.
And I will say our vendor ummanagement and select and
(07:43):
selection process takes a littlebit longer than most.
So we we do like to comb througha lot of that.
So kind of our back-end processin the credit union um to
onboard a new vendor takes takesa little bit of time.
Um, and so CodeTribute was readyto go from contract signing.
Um, and then that for us, we'rekind of you know just digging
into the details.
(08:03):
And so um it took us um right atum maybe a little less than a
year um for us to go live.
Um, but it but again,CodeTribute already had that
platform, the baseline there forus within their um promised
timeline of 60 to 90 days.
SPEAKER_03 (08:23):
That that is a fantastic story, really.
And how long, how long did ittake you to select a vendor?
SPEAKER_02 (08:31):
Um, I'm trying to remember when we first started
this process.
Um We did we did a good bit ofwe did a good bit of uh fielding
out kind of some of the vendorsin the space and and trying to
connect with those.
Um let me let me see here realquick.
(08:52):
We started wow, started this inaround August of 2023, and we
signed the contract withCoTribute in April of 2024.
SPEAKER_03 (09:07):
Well, I've I've often told fintechs, they'll
say, Oh, we had a great meetingwith credit union XYZ.
And I said, Well, if it's a no,you might hear in a month or so.
If it's a yes, it could take ayear.
And they say, That's notpossible.
And I said, Oh, that's actuallynormal.
Am I right about that?
(09:28):
Yes, I think you are, Robert.
I mean, credit unions are quitedeliberate about these choices.
It's uh and how many creditunions are are customers of
yours?
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
Uh about 50.
And and I think you know, thethe interesting Robert, I I
think the reason we like creditunions is um, you know, they
they collaborate, you know, andlike you know, banks who might,
you know, compete with eachother, collect credit unions
collaborate.
So if you do a good job with,you know, one of them, you know,
they let the other folks know.
(10:02):
So we we appreciate that.
So our focus is, you know, howdo we make them successful?
How do we make our clientssuccessful?
And that's our primary focus.
SPEAKER_03 (10:10):
You're absolutely right.
Credit unions, a happy creditunion customer can become an
evangelist for fintech.
I I know quite a few credit,very senior credit union
executives who will collar uhpeers of theirs at meetings
saying, Yeah, so why are youstill using that crappy
software?
You should be using this.
I mean, it's I can't imagine abanker saying this to somebody
(10:32):
unless they're lying and thesoftware really is crappy that
they're using.
Hey, you should be using this,man.
That's that's the credit unionpeople really like to talk up
good vendors.
That's uh now when you win acontract, why do you win it?
SPEAKER_00 (10:52):
Um, you know, it's interesting, Robert.
One of the things we actually umthe philosophy we have is at the
end of the day, it's not ourabout us or our products, it's
really about the our client andthe problems that they're
looking to solve.
So we put a big focus onoutcomes.
Um so we we work with clients onthat really to see, hey, are you
(11:15):
getting you know five times moremembers?
Are you reducing your uh backoffice manual work by 80%?
You know, that's what we'refocused on.
Um so I think a lot of times thereason we win is you know, we're
able to show outcomes and andreally let the product speak for
itself.
That's that's a that's a bigpiece.
The second piece is for us, youknow, we don't just implement,
(11:39):
we want to be partners with ourclients.
So we have quarterly executivereviews with clients.
We're looking at proactivelylooking at what knobs and dials
can they turn to get betteroutcomes.
Um so I think those two I thinkset us apart.
So anytime we get into acompetitive environment and you
(11:59):
know they actually want to talkto our clients, you know, we
come out on top just because youknow our technology is you know
really good, but we focus a loton outcomes.
SPEAKER_03 (12:08):
What kinds of outcomes?
SPEAKER_00 (12:11):
So I could share a few different ones.
The number one thing, if youlook at operational efficiency,
um there are a lot of thingsthat you have to do in the
background, you know, just tomake sure uh that you don't get
fraudulent folks in.
As you can imagine with digitalonboarding, it sounds very
simple.
Uh, but if you want to reallymake it super simple for the
(12:33):
prospective member to come in,but super hard for a fraudster
to come in, you know, there's alot of different things that you
have to do.
Um so operational efficiency onthe back end, you know, making
sure that the manual steps theyhave to do for fraud checks or
KYC, KYB, you know, all of thosethings we automate.
So that's one big outcome thatwe focus on, um, the operational
(12:55):
efficiency.
The second one we focus on isgrowth.
And here we look at a couple ofdifferent things.
One is just the actual newmembership growth.
You know, what is it now?
What was it six months from sixmonths ago?
And and we've seen up to 5xincrease in new memberships, you
know, within the first sixmonths.
So that's an important piecethat we look at in terms of
(13:15):
growth.
The third one we look at is youknow, actual deposits.
So when a new member comes in,you know, what's the average,
you know, new deposits, youknow, and and we've seen you
know very easily, you know,10,000 new deposits per new
member.
We've seen 70% reduction inemployee processing time in the
back end.
And and then the last one welook at is you know, what are
their goals?
(13:36):
We see a lot of credit insaying, hey, we want to engage
with younger members.
And and we've seen clients wherethe digital channel has become
the number one channel more thanall the branches put together.
Uh, and that's because they'regoing after the younger folks
and they want to get them indigitally.
So those are some of the metricsthat we actually look at.
SPEAKER_03 (13:55):
Now, what how big is your focus on after opening
activity?
A complaint I've heard from manycredit units, not regarding your
product, but the the the the prothe kind of products in general,
is yeah, we have this G Wizthing that opens up accounts
pretty easily, and then nothing.
(14:16):
You know, they put the minimumamount in and nothing, nothing.
And that's I've hear I hear morecredit unions concerned about
that.
It's a good thing to beconcerned about.
SPEAKER_00 (14:29):
Absolutely.
You know, and and that's one ofthe things we've looked at, um,
Robert, is you know, we we say,hey, we're the next generation
digital origination onboardingplatform.
And and the reason is that youknow, we actually have AI agents
that not only help on theacquisition side, hey, who are
the right prospective members?
What are the segments, that'sthat kind of thing.
(14:51):
But also cross-selling orupselling.
So you came in for an auto loanat the highest point of interest
when you're super excited aboutjust being approved for an auto
loan, we can also say, hey, bythe way, we think you know this
and this and this might beapplicable for you based on that
credit union's products.
And so the cross-selling piece,you know, getting them to get
the second product or the thirdproduct is a big piece.
(15:12):
Then we have something called arelationship growth agent, and
that's really focused on thedormant accounts, right?
Which is somebody came in for anauto loan, they don't even know.
They they came in indirectly,they don't even know the credit
union.
But how do we take those dormantaccounts and and then make you
know make sure that they'reengaged members?
So we have some specificcapabilities around that.
So it definitely doesn't stopwith just account opening,
(15:34):
that's just one piece of it.
The cross-selling, theupselling, the relationship
growth, they're all important.
SPEAKER_03 (15:41):
Yeah, and credit unions have a psychological
problem, don't they?
When you say, well, the the newmember doesn't have to come in
to do the account opening.
Kathy, how how did your creditunion deal with that?
In or in aspects of thepsychological problem of saying
(16:07):
you're opening an account, youdon't have to come in to
complete this.
A lot of credit unions 10 yearsago had tools online, but then
at the end of the day, you'd hitroadblock and they'd say, Oh,
just come on down.
Say, wait, no, I'm trying to dothis all digitally.
Uh no, no, just come down, it'llbe quicker.
(16:28):
Um I guess I think they wantedto see if I was a human being.
SPEAKER_02 (16:33):
Right.
Yeah, and we we still have thosethose members that that like
those people that potentiallywant to join the credit union
that want to physically walk in,walk into the branch.
So we we do switch.
SPEAKER_03 (16:44):
I'm I'm more interested in the ones who don't
want to walk, walk in.
SPEAKER_02 (16:48):
Right, yeah.
And and so yeah, we we certainlyhave the those as well.
And I think a lot of the abilitynow um is because we have kind
of the, as you mentioned, backdoor.
Um, you know, our field ofmembership is is right in the
states, you know, SouthCarolina.
Um, and we see, you know, someNorth Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Virginia, um, we seefolks in those areas, but um,
(17:10):
you know, having the online umaccount opening has uh we we do
see folks um from California, wesee folks from up north and and
having that ability to go outonline and they like our
mortgage rates.
And so now, you know, they're inNew York and they want to apply
for a mortgage with CPM becausethey like our mortgage rates.
Uh they can open their accountonline, don't have to come into
(17:32):
the branch and they can applyfor their mortgage and they're
all set.
SPEAKER_03 (17:38):
Philip, how do you how do you assure the credit
union or reassure the creditunion that we've this is
actually a real living person?
We've we've validated that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:48):
Yeah.
You know, Robert, I just want totouch on the previous question
you asked.
You know, is that a differentmindset?
I think one of the things I findis uh the fastest growing credit
unions aren't you know small,they aren't big.
They're the ones that arethinking differently.
So to your point about, hey, isthat a normal thing for credit
unions to ask people to come in?
(18:09):
It's actually changing.
The fastest growing ones arebasically saying, hey, we need
to support the member where theyare.
You know, they could start atthe branch, they could go finish
on their phone, they could startat their desktop, come and
finish the branch, or they coulddo the whole thing on their
mobile phone, right?
It's really meeting the memberswhere they are and what they're
most comfortable with.
You know, that's what they'redoing.
In terms of your question abouthow do we make sure that this is
(18:31):
the right person, we we have anumber of different technologies
that we employ and we do thatyou know different ways.
So there's liveness checks, it'sfraud checks, there's different
ways of doing it, you know, withID, without IDs, there are
different ways of doing it.
So one of the things we do is wegive credit unions options,
right?
You could do it at the frontdoor or you could do it at the
back door, you could do it basedon the product.
(18:52):
You know, for these kinds ofproducts, we actually want them
to come in and fill theapplication, then we'll
actually, you know, do all thatstuff.
So there's a lot of knobs andlevers that the credit unions
can use based on products, uh,based on you know their
philosophy on what they feel isimportant.
But what we give them isanalytics.
So they could really look at,hey, what's actually happening?
If I do a liveness check upfront, what happens?
(19:14):
Is that really necessary forthis product?
You know, they so they have allthe tools and capabilities to be
able to do that.
SPEAKER_03 (19:21):
Yeah, I'm I'm I remember about 13 years ago, I
moved across country into adifferent state and got letters
from various banks saying, hey,come on down.
One included a very interestingthing, it was a little coupon
for like 200 bucks or something,400 bucks, I forget.
Just for opening the account.
(19:41):
And they had digital on accountopening, so I opened an account.
But to get to 200 bucks, I hadto bring the coupon into the
bank.
Which I I I retrospectively Ithink is pure genius.
Yeah, it was it was literally ahalf mile from where I lived, it
was no big deal.
Uh and at the time I thought,well, this is a bit of a
(20:03):
nuisance, but what yeah, it's200 bucks.
I mean, ain't gonna kill me.
So and they got to say, hey, I'mreally alive, and I I seem to
look more or less the age I'mclaiming to be.
Yeah, okay.
So I mean, am I being paranoidor were they actually doing
that?
SPEAKER_00 (20:20):
Yeah, creepings now.
I mean, these things they'revery sophisticated, Robert.
We give them the tools to besophisticated.
So, in some cases, um, you know,for example, denials, right, on
a loan application, there areinstances where they'll say,
hey, you know, we really ordon't want to deny it, let's put
in a review queue, let them comein, let's actually talk to them
and then figure out, you know,should we actually deny them or
(20:43):
should we actually approve them?
So I think there are instanceswhen, you know, you may actually
want them to come in just so youcould actually get to know their
situation a little better.
But uh again, if you have aplatform that gives you all the
capabilities where you canactually decide how you want to
configure it, then then you havethe option.
You have the option of changingit, you know, um, you know, as
(21:04):
you get more data.
SPEAKER_03 (21:06):
Now, Philip, how do you uh you're gonna get to do a
little sales pitch here?
Uh a credit union, I'm lookingat your your tools and say two
others, the finalists.
Why is yours better?
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
So there are a few different reasons for that,
Robert.
I think the the number one thingI would say is our outcomes are
better um than than what we'veseen out there.
And you know, our customers haveactually told us that.
I think the second piece isthis, you know, you touched on a
simple thing when we started theconversation about SEGs.
(21:44):
You know, Kathy, you know, doyou have to be part of a seg to
actually come in?
See, one of the things we'rehearing from our customers more
and more is our platform isvery, very configurable, and
it's a low-code, no-code uhplatform.
So the which basically says, youknow, Kathy and her team of
business users who areauthorized can go in and make
(22:06):
changes to the flows.
They could change the copy, theycould change, you know, a lot of
things like that.
If Kathy's team has a huge ITteam, we give them a developer
portal so they could goconfigure it as much as they
want.
But the the benefit is we givethem complete configurability.
So if you're part of a seg, wegive them the ability to
(22:27):
co-brand it with the seg orprivate label it to the seg.
We give them the ability toembed these flows anywhere you
know within the seg.
So we give them not only acapability to onboard people,
but really to a broadercapability to distribute their
financial products across theirown whole digital ecosystem of
partners.
So that's another you know,differentiator.
(22:49):
You know, we I remember a bankclient of ours, you know, said
that.
They went through an RFPprocess, got the top three, and
did all the, and you know, theother two are much bigger than
us.
But really, they came down tothis and said, hey, you guys are
much more configurable and yougive us the tools to be able to
configure it.
If I want just something thatworks out of the box, that's set
(23:10):
a certain way, then you knowthere are others out there.
So that's one piece.
And then I think the last pieceis um the use of AI.
AI is probably the most overusedterm there is, and and we
actually get annoyed by it.
But if we use AI for the rightuse cases, it can be pretty
powerful.
So the way we use AI, we usegenerative AI, we use
(23:32):
deterministic AI.
Um, and the deterministic AI isthe explainable ball.
Think of it as a glass box,right?
So it makes decisions for you,but it tells you why it made a
certain decision.
So it's explainable, auditable,you can explain it to auditors.
So I think the the fact that wehave generative AI, agentic AI,
deterministic AI, and the righthuman in the loop process, I
(23:56):
think that's a secret sauce thatwe have that we haven't seen our
competitors have.
That's that's at least what ourour customers are telling us.
SPEAKER_03 (24:05):
Uh Kathy, would you agree with this?
SPEAKER_02 (24:09):
Certainly.
That was one of the reasons thethe configurability and the
customization um and havingaccess to to make those changes
ourselves was very conconvenient.
Um in the space we were before.
We had to submit supporttickets, and then you know, that
had to become a project, andthen there were costs involved.
And so it was very attractivethat with the Cotribute
(24:31):
platform, we could go in and wecan maintenance those screens.
If we saw something that maybeum was, you know, not catching
someone's eye.
We want to change a visual, wewant to change the tone, we want
to change colors.
Um, we have the ability to dothat at our fingertips with just
a simple login.
And um, that was very attractiveto us.
SPEAKER_03 (24:52):
How did you do the final testing for this product?
And yeah, if you're doing like anew fancy dancy uh debit card,
usually the final testing is alarge employee group.
That wouldn't work in this case,would it?
I mean, how did how did what wasthe final thing where you said,
wow, this really does work?
SPEAKER_02 (25:11):
So what we did was we did a um kind of a soft
launch and we allowed our um inbranch uh FSRs to walk through
the online account opening uhthe onboarding link with um
opening in a member account inthe branch.
And so we were able to test thatexperience, uh, making sure
everything mapped as it should.
(25:32):
Um so you know, certainly thatall the as were dotted, the T's
were crossed and everything.
Once we were able to launchthis, was was we were we were
gonna work those things andeverything would connect to the
core as it as it should.
And so having the ability to umleverage that in the branches uh
allowed us to, if there were anydisconnects, um the member
(25:52):
wouldn't know and they couldswitch right back to the core
and their old process, and thataccount would be open.
So that was a very convenientway for us to kind of um pilot
this process.
SPEAKER_03 (26:03):
Now, do you have account opening both on online
on a computer and in a digitalphone?
SPEAKER_02 (26:11):
Correct.
So the plat the Cotributeplatform works on both
experiences.
Um you can use a desktop login,a web browser login, or you can
do it in your mobile phone.
And one of the other attractivethings about Cotribute is that
experience looks the same.
And so um, you know, it thescreens will minimize and
maximize depending on the memberexperience and what device
(26:32):
they're using.
So each person using differentdevices is going to see the same
screens, the same pictures.
Um, everything looks similar.
SPEAKER_03 (26:41):
Do you have any uh data about uh what members are
prefer to use?
In other words, do you have morephone or more web?
SPEAKER_02 (26:51):
That is not a data point that we have um been
tracking or have access to thatI'm aware of.
SPEAKER_03 (26:58):
Philip, do you track that?
Not necessarily for this creditunion, but in general.
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
Um actually we we do um track that, Robert, and and
it varies based on region, basedon product, um, you know, based
on the credit union brand, basedon the demographic that they're
targeting, a lot of differentthings.
But I think um one interestingthing that you know Kathy was
sharing was um the number of youknow support requests that came
(27:24):
in from people that were comingin.
I thought, Kathy, that was umreally interesting what you
shared before.
That might be relevant toRobert's question as well, in
terms of the support requestsfrom prospective members that
are going through the flow.
SPEAKER_02 (27:37):
Certainly.
So when we we have members, um,well, our contact center
obviously fields the calls.
And so in our past experience,um, we received several calls.
Um, and there were lots of callsof members getting stuck in the
flow.
Um, you know, their device wasnot compatible to take the
picture of the driver's license.
Um, uh, you know, they werehaving trouble.
(27:58):
Most people who were using adesktop were trying to scan
their driver's license.
Um, and so with the Codeributeplatform, when they get to the
identity verification piece, um,one of the things that is
convenient is that again, everymember has the same experience.
And because of the Platintegration, um, the member just
(28:18):
simply scans a QR code and andit walks them through the
process.
So it's it's very automated.
Um, it prompts them on what theyneed to do.
And so that has drasticallyreduced the number of calls that
we receive in regards toquestions about our
applications, members gettingstuck in the application.
Um, and those again, uh, youknow, that takes that volume out
(28:41):
of the out of our contact centerand allows them to fill those
calls for you know other issuesthat the members may have.
SPEAKER_03 (28:48):
Well, Philip, uh off-beat question, but does a
SEG add complexity to yourprocess?
In other words, it's fairly easyto get a driver's license or
something like that.
If I claim that my my father isa retiree of such and such
corporation, so I'm I'meligible.
How do you verify that?
SPEAKER_00 (29:09):
If you think of it, seg is just a different channel
that the prospective member iscoming through.
Um, so we could have customflows.
So one of the things we do isum, you know, Kathy's team can
have a flow that they use in thebranch, the slightly different
one if they want to use it for aseg, a different one if they
want to use it for another SIG.
So that's one thing.
(29:29):
The other thing is because we umhave some really cool technology
on embedding with the right SEGpartners.
So let's say you had a Fortune500 company uh that was part of
your SEG, we could actuallyintegrate it right into their
portal.
So just imagine if IBM was theSEG, you could have the flows
(29:52):
embedded right into the employeeportal, in which case it makes
it even simpler because we couldget a lot of the credentials, a
lot of the identity.
The information from thatsystem.
So it makes it super simple forthem to actually onboard onto,
for example, a health savingsaccount.
SPEAKER_03 (30:08):
So what what what are you hoping to add to your
product now?
SPEAKER_00 (30:12):
You know, there are a few things that we're looking
at, Robert.
Obviously, you know, on the onthe AI growth agent side, you
know, that's a big piece, andwe're continuing to add to that.
Um, both on the acquisitionside, the cross-selling side,
and the and the relationshipgrowth side, that's that's an
important piece.
Um, and then you know, we wealso have some um new stuff.
(30:32):
As you can imagine, a lot ofpeople are going to be making
decisions not through Googlesearch anymore, but through
LLMs, right?
They'll they'll use you knowlanguage models like you know,
OpenAI or Anthropic or Cloud orsome of those to actually do
research.
So we're actually wanting tohelp embed some of these credit
(30:56):
unions, you know, products evenin those language models.
So, you know, right from asearch, if you feel that, hey, I
want to open an account here,could you actually you know open
up right away from there?
So we're looking at how do weactually help the credit unions
distribute their products evenfurther, not only through SEGs,
not only through the digitalchannels, but could they
(31:16):
actually do that even throughsome of the learning, you know,
the language models that are outthere?
SPEAKER_03 (31:21):
Hey, before this call, I asked Google Gemini what
the field of membership of thecredit union was.
Historically, I would have goneto the credit union site, but I
was cutting to the chase andGemini, just tell me what the
field is.
SPEAKER_01 (31:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (31:34):
And uh um it more or less worked, I think.
Well, it seemed to be acomplicated list of paper
companies, so which is not abusiness I know a heck of a lot
about, but we do are goingdirectly to to the uh AI agents
at this point, so right.
SPEAKER_00 (31:52):
So I think that's where we're putting a lot of our
RD now is how do we help thecredit unions make sure that
their products are embeddedthere?
They you know and they could youknow open or you know,
cross-sell, you know, rightthere.
And that's that's an importantpiece.
SPEAKER_03 (32:06):
What's the size range of your credit union
customers?
SPEAKER_00 (32:10):
Um, you know, our goal, uh Robert, with our
platform is to support any size.
Our smallest is probably 10,000members, our largest is 2.3
million members.
SPEAKER_03 (32:21):
And uh roughly what would you say the assets are?
SPEAKER_00 (32:24):
Uh AUM can range from at the low end 150 million
AUM to at the high end, um, youknow, close to 200 billion AUM.
SPEAKER_03 (32:36):
That's 150 million assets.
That's that's that's a lot ofcredit unions that you're
covering.
SPEAKER_00 (32:44):
Yeah, yeah.
And and that I think that's thebig thing, right?
I think so.
We started off on the on the bigend, so you know, with the 200
billion with you know, with a B,that's where we started.
But you know, our goal was tosay, hey, if we want to help
credit unions, we've got to beable to serve up a platform
that's cost efficient for them,but also that works with the
(33:05):
smallest credit union so theyget the tools that the large
ones have that the big bankshave.
SPEAKER_03 (33:10):
Now you also serve as banks.
So what's the difference betweenthe product for a credit union
and the product for a bank?
SPEAKER_00 (33:18):
So on the platform side, really there's no um
difference, Robert.
There's some unique things.
Uh SEG, for example, is uniqueon the credit union side.
But banks have relationships, sothey may not call it a SEG, but
they'll actually use product,they'll distribute products
through um, you know, othercompanies as well.
So that's actually you knowdifferent.
(33:38):
As you probably know,membership, you know, that whole
process is unique to you knowcredit union.
So there's some variances interms of the actual process and
the customer onboarding, but theplatform we use is the same.
SPEAKER_03 (33:51):
Um more and more credit unions have a regional
field of membership that makesit really pretty simple.
SPEAKER_00 (33:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:57):
And the real complexity with credit unions
are these backdoors.
You know, Chase does notunderstand backdoors to to uh
becoming a customer.
They'll find a way to make you acustomer.
Just walk by one a little tooslowly.
Uh and if you're wearing niceclothes, you'll be pulled in.
(34:18):
But it's uh now do you havecustomer attrition?
SPEAKER_00 (34:23):
You know, we've lost two customers uh so far, Robert.
And and one of them was becauseum of a failed you know merger
and there was some intricaciesaround that.
Another one the same way, theyactually bought a credit union
that had a really, really longum contract, and you know, so
they had to you know take that.
So that's that's that's thoseare ones that we've actually
(34:47):
lost.
But again, we're grateful to ourcredit union, you know,
customers who trust us, and soyou know, we don't take that
trust lightly.
We want to earn that trust andwe want to keep that trust.
SPEAKER_03 (34:59):
Do you need core integration?
SPEAKER_00 (35:02):
We do.
So we're integrated withCorrelation, we're integrated
with Jack Hendry, with uhScimitar, with Silver Lake,
we're integrated with Pfizer,with Portico, with DNA, we're
integrated with most of thedigital banking providers that
are out there.
You know, Bano is a goodexample.
Um, so yeah, we and and alsowith the LOSs as well.
(35:22):
So uh you already have thosetools, obviously.
Yeah, you know, and that's why,you know, like Kathy initially
was talking about the the speed.
I think our fastestimplementation has been 19 days.
Um then you know, just this pastweek, you know, we actually
turned around a bank and it was45 days for the complete you
(35:44):
know consumer loan applicationacross you know multiple
products.
And the reason is because wehave all the all these
integrations built in.
We have 90 plus you knowproducts, deposit products, loan
products, investment products,you know, wealth management
products, insurance products,all uh best in class flows
defined.
So you could take it and veryquickly modify it and then
(36:05):
launch very quickly with it.
SPEAKER_03 (36:07):
And how long did it take you to develop your core
middleware?
SPEAKER_00 (36:13):
We did a lot of you know, payment processing work,
Robert, for about four or fiveyears.
The the last part, which is thelast five years, have been
focused just on this, on all theintegrations on the digital
onboarding.
Because as you imagine as youcan imagine, you know, having to
support small credit unions,large ones, small banks, large
banks, there's a lot ofdifferent nuances, a lot of
(36:35):
different integrations.
So we've been working hard at itfor about five years now.
SPEAKER_03 (36:39):
Yeah, I just I covered uh mobile banking's
rollout in the credit unionworld.
And what was funny was a lot ofthese companies would have one
or two toolkits.
And you could call up and they'dsay, Okay, what's your core?
Oh, we don't have that.
Uh well, is there a problem?
No, there's no problems becauseit could cost a lot of money to
pay us to develop integrationtools, yeah.
(37:01):
And uh, and that often ended theconversation right there, so
which was unfortunate.
But by now, enough enoughvendors do have uh a pretty big
range of cores that they'reintegrated to.
You have a complaint aboutcredit union customers.
What is it?
Other than they take them a longtime to make a decision.
SPEAKER_00 (37:25):
No, I I I think you know, actually, we we don't have
any um complaints, Robert.
And I think even on theacquisition process, I think we
we appreciate the rigor and thedeliberate nature of how
thoughtful they are.
Uh and and we appreciate thatbecause at the end of the day,
um, the worst thing that canhappen is somebody, you know,
picks us quickly and for somereason it's not a good fit.
(37:47):
Um, so we we take thoserelationships very seriously.
So we're actually verydeliberate and thoughtful in
terms of sharing what we can doand what we can't do.
And and we're so grateful foryou know, Kathy and her team at
CPM um for you know just thepartnership that they've had
with us and and and working withus.
So we're grateful for theseopportunities.
SPEAKER_03 (38:09):
Now, Kathy, with with this uh contribute
technology in place, are youlooking around?
Is the credit union lookingaround saying, geez, we have
this spiffy uh onboardingprocess here?
Now we really ought to beupgrading X, Y, and Z.
So you you you buy a new, nicenew, really modern refrigerator.
(38:32):
It even talks to you.
Then you look at your your yourstove and you say, God, that
thing's old.
I want to get a new one.
I mean, you follow my logichere.
Is are you experiencing any ofthat at the credit union?
SPEAKER_02 (38:45):
Certainly.
I think that with technology,that software is always changing
and um integrations and vendorsare always coming with with new
things.
So um, you know, as contractsare up for renewal, we're always
looking to see, you know, what'sin that space.
Are we, you know, where we are,is is that up to date?
Is that the most modern, youknow, thing, or do they have the
(39:08):
technologies?
I think we look more now as notnecessarily stay because we're
comfortable, but you know, whatother vendors are in this space
and what vendors are growing inthat space?
Um, we always want to look forforward-thinking vendors because
again, the things and systemsand technologies are are ever
changing and and growing andrapidly.
(39:29):
Um so, yes, certainly, um, whenwe have any contracts that are
coming up for renewal, um, evenif they're not, you know, if we
if we see something out there inthis space, um, we always share
that internally.
Um, you know, hey, this is thisis out there.
So you may want to keep that inyour back pocket if your
contract, you know, expires in afew years and start looking, you
know, for future umintegrations.
SPEAKER_03 (39:52):
Who do you benchmark your technology against?
What what kind of you don't evenhave to name the credit unions,
but give me some idea of theirsize, or maybe you're using
banks.
SPEAKER_02 (40:03):
No, typically we look for other credit unions in
our market um and other creditunions about our size to see
kind of what they're whatthey're doing.
Um and we we also look at othercredit unions that have other
partners or other vendors orconnections.
And so um one of the things thatwe looked for when we were
looking for the online accountum vendor is we we looked at
(40:27):
core, you know, who else is onour core.
We looked at our online bankingum providers.
So those are huge when you thinkabout um looking for a new
vendor, not just comparing umcredit unions in your area, but
more more so credit unions thatare similar to you who have some
of the same systems that youhave.
Um, because just as Phillipssaid, those integrations are
(40:50):
important um when it when youcome down the line.
So again, not just getting thatmember onboarded, but what can
you do after that member'sonboarded?
Um, if you have an integrationto our online banking, can we
get them set up with an onlineaccount and then you know move
them right into registering foronline banking?
Um, that's something that we'reworking towards um here in the
(41:11):
next quarter.
So I think, yeah, looking atcredit unions, our size in our
market, um, but also creditunions that are similar in in
some of the software and theintegrations and partners they
have.
SPEAKER_03 (41:23):
Now, I everything you said there was good and
makes perfect sense.
But at this point in theconversation, I usually say, and
you get to curse at me if youwant to, you gotta be comparing
yourself not just to them, butto Chase, to Chime, to monsters
in this field, because more andmore financial service customers
(41:44):
are going to those institutionsin part because the technology
is just so damn good.
SPEAKER_02 (41:50):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (41:52):
Yeah, so do you look at them?
SPEAKER_02 (41:54):
We do, we do.
I think as a credit union, we'rea little bit more conservative.
SPEAKER_03 (41:58):
Um, and and so there's a lot of risks, I think,
in some of those um, some ofthose fintechs can lose money
for the next hundred years andstill stay in business.
That they but Chase can't.
SPEAKER_02 (42:10):
Yeah, so we certainly have to compete with
them.
Um, but I think that that's kindof where we we see that um, you
know, this is the a lot of thefintechs in the space, um, you
know, as a consumer, um, peopleare just attractive to what it
offers to them and notnecessarily when we're when
you're on the other side of thatin the credit union space and
(42:32):
and you're looking out for yourmembers and protecting them.
Um, I think that you have to youhave to be cognitive of what's
in the space.
But we we can't we can't competein that same space as it relates
to certain risks andcompliance-wise.
SPEAKER_03 (42:52):
Um elaborate a little bit about the compliance.
SPEAKER_02 (42:56):
Well, that's huge for the CPM team, and and Philip
can probably share some of thatwith you as far as is our
integration.
So we still very much like to tohave all the checks and
balances.
Um, and so when he mentionedearlier in the conversation
about non-documentary versusdocumentary identification, um,
we know that that's that's athat's a that's kind of a
(43:19):
drop-off rate or a spot in theapplication, is some folks are
going to abandon yourapplication when you ask them to
verify their identity um with apiece of you know, a
government-issued ID.
And so um all we know thatcompetitors in that space are
not asking those questions orthey may forego that step, but
(43:40):
in the credit union, that'simportant to us.
And so that is something that werequire on 100% of our
applications.
Um, and and so we have to kindof balance that, right?
Um, and so we're we're notwilling, our compliance team is
not willing to let that go.
And so we, you know, we had tosatisfy that um ask.
SPEAKER_03 (44:00):
Well, let's be honest, phones have made it
easier for the consumer tocomply with that.
Yeah, historically, how do Iscan my driver's license?
Where do I go?
What do I do?
Well, now you just snap apicture of it or something.
Philip, uh, compliance, how isthat an issue for you?
SPEAKER_00 (44:17):
Yeah, you you know, I think this is a very
interesting topic, uh, Robert.
And this is one area where Ithink we're adding a lot of
value to our credit unionpartners.
And the reason is this, if youreally look at it, um,
compliance in this one end ofthe spectrum, right?
How do you manage risk?
And the other end of thespectrum is how do you actually
make it super easy for people tocome in where you know you ask
(44:40):
them the very minimum stuffbased on what you do.
I think that's one of the areaswhere we've actually shown, hey,
what are Chime and Moneyline andRobinhood doing where they, you
know, some of them don't havethe compliance needs, but some
of them do.
Some of them are regulatedentities.
So looking at, hey, what isChase doing?
What is you know um uh wellsFargo doing and bringing some of
(45:01):
those best practices in is partof what we do as well as you
know in the implementationprocess.
And I think to Kathy's point,you know, there are some folks
in compliance who have maybe adated view of how they look at
things.
But I think it's it's really youknow going through and helping
them understand what other folksare doing.
And and we're seeing a lot of umsuccess with credit unions where
(45:22):
they'll actually say, hey, let'slook at this together for these
kinds of products.
Um, we don't need to do this,this, and this.
For example, if they're alreadyan existing member and they're
asking for a credit card, wedon't need to do all of these
things because we know certainthings about them.
So there's something, so we havewhat we uh call you know
conditional approval, thosekinds of things.
(45:43):
We have a lot of ways wherebased on product, based on who
it is, you could have knobs anddials that you could turn.
So you make the friction as lowas possible.
But for the right products,making sure that all the
compliance checks are you knowdouble and triple checked.
So the the trick is you knowunderstanding that we do compete
with other regulated entitieswho figured out how to make it
(46:05):
frictionless.
And and we have to you know dothat as well.
SPEAKER_03 (46:09):
Does either of you have something you've been dying
to say that I wasn't smartenough to ask you?
And if you do, now's yourchance.
SPEAKER_00 (46:15):
No, this has been a great conversation, Robert.
I appreciate it and uhappreciate the work that you all
are doing at C2.0 as well is youknow, really educating all your
listeners on you know what'snew, what's exciting, what are
people doing, what are bestpractices.
So we appreciate that.
SPEAKER_03 (46:30):
So, Kathy, you don't have anything to say, or do you
do have something to say?
SPEAKER_02 (46:34):
Well, no, I know likewise I want to thank you for
the opportunity to do this, andI think that it's been great
conversation.
Um, I think one of the thingsthat we didn't mention or
discuss, and I'd and I'dcertainly like to draw attention
to it, is one of the one of thegame changers for CPM has been
the the fraud tools that theCo-Tribute platform offers.
(46:56):
And so um just a quick littletidbit on that is um their fraud
tools have significantlyimproved our operational
efficiency um by reducing ourstaff hours that we previously
spent on um post-fraudremediation and account cleanup.
So uh right now we're not seeingum those fraud accounts hit the
(47:17):
core.
And so we we are certainlyappreciative of those tools that
come along with the Cotributeplatform.
SPEAKER_03 (47:26):
Before we go, think hard about how you can help
support this podcast so we cando more interviews with more
thoughtful leaders in the creditunion world.
What we're trying to figure outhere in these podcasts is what's
next for credit unions.
What can they do to really,really, really make a difference
in the financial scene?
Can't all be mega banks, can it?
(47:48):
It's my hope it won't all bemega banks.
It'll always be a place forcredit unions.
That's what we're discussinghere.
So figure out how you can help.
Get in touch with me.
This is RJ McGarvey atgmail.com, Robert McGarvey
again.
That's RJ McGarvey at gmail.com.
Get in touch, we'll figure out away that you can help.
We need your support, we wantyour support, we thank you for
(48:11):
your support.
The CU2.0 podcast.
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