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Mark Ritter, CEO of Member Business Financial Services, a Pennsylvania based CUSO, estimates that about 800 US credit unions do member business lending, meaning that perhaps 3700 don’t.

Many, many more could. That is spelled out in HR 1151, the law that lets credit unions serve more than one employer group. Passage of that law is detailed in CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 51 with Marc Schaefer, then the CEO of Truliant CU.

If credit unions can make small business loans, why don’t they - that’s a question Ritter asks and answers in this show.

But it also is very clear that he believes credit unions - and their members and communities - would be better served if more credit unions jumped into member business lending. The need on the part of small businesses is acute, many are turning to non traditional lenders who may charge as much as 40% APR. Credit unions can play an important role in helping their communities' small businesses, says Ritter.

Understand, too, that a CUSO like MBFS - and there are several competitors in the space - may source the loan, it will underwrite it, MBFS will say if it thinks the loan is a definite “yes,” a definite “no,” or - most likely - a maybe. And if it’s a maybe MBFS will relate the pros and cons of issuing the loan.

The credit union provides the loan capital. MBFS does the heavy lifting.

In the show Ritter offers his unfiltered outlook for commercial real estate loans and also predicts a bump in delinquency rates - and yet he is bullish about member business lending in general.

Ritter, by the way, has his own podcast. Tune in for deep dives in member business trending.

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Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

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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

And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.

Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

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The conversation with West Community Credit Union’s Josh Rodriguez started in Ashland OR at the CU 2.0/ Room (39) a event in late September and in this podcast it picks up again.

Fodder for the show came in the form of a questionnaire distributed to event attendees and Josh had dutifully filled his in. He agreed to discuss his answers on this show and we take as the jumping off point West Community Credit Union’s podcast “Banking on You.” It’s a good show and ought to inspire other credit unions to try something similar.

We also talk about West Community Credit Union’s implementation of an AI bot - this is ambitious stuff for a $400 million credit union but West is proving it can be done.

Also dazzling are Josh’s plans for more video and more audio content that will be surfacing in West Community.

Along the way we discuss work being done by Anne Legg and Saroop Bharwani - and regular listeners know about this from podcast #378.

There’s also mention of an episode with Lee Silber, editor of The Credit Union Way. There’s a link in the show notes.

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

And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.

Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto