WAKEFIELD, Mass.—Credit unions will need to face down the challenges over the next five of more years of non-traditional and “less personal” financial digital choices by staying strong and close to their members, according to Brad Singer of Primax.
“Credit unions have the opportunity to capitalize on their trusted position, relationship and affiliation with a captive local community,” Singer said, adding that there are good opportunities for consolidation and for credit unions to join forces to provide more breadth and depth to their members.
To take advantage of the opportunity Singer urged credit unions to embrace their member relationships. “Often members have many more needs than are currently served,” he pointed out. “Personal connections go a long way. Make sure there is ability for your members to grow with you and your services through their lifecycle from initial building of credit, to wealth accumulation, borrowing needs, investing and retirement.”
New Banking Opportunities
With new age and Millennial members, Singer said a key role will played, of course, by technology – including online, mobile, chat, text. “Invest in a great user experience, complemented with the personal touch,” he said. “Speed and access to money and information create new banking opportunities.”
But technology is only one part of the answer, he asserted. “Mobile is not a cure all and people will get overloaded with too many apps on their device and the next new ‘mobile wallet,’” he said. “EMV will become more and more the standard, but will take time to change consumer’s behavior of swipe and the merchant to mandate dip.”
To augment the placement of technology, Singer recommended Big Data insights into member characteristics, banking behavior, key performance indicators (KPIs), benchmarks, and risk/return modeling to uncover areas of new opportunity.
“Next generation secure technology will allow credit unions to adapt and deliver solutions to market and respond to unmet member needs much quicker,” he said. “Projects that took months or years to launch should take days or weeks. Credit unions that embrace this new world will thrive, others may not survive.”