The CU2.0 Podcast

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When Shane Saunders took over as CEO of Mocse Credit Union, a $430 million institution based in Modesto CA, he knew job one had to be pushing and pulling the credit union into the digital age.

Mocse had tech of course. Saunders didn’t believe it was good enough especially as credit unions nowadays compete with everything from Bank of America to online fintechs.

So he brought in Narmi, whose slogan is Be where banking is going.

This is a special episode. Mocse isn’t quite at the finish line with Narmi’s implementations but it’s close and Saunders offers a candid assessment of how the process has gone.

Understand, he’s a longtime credit union veteran. His credit union career goes back almost 30 years. He came to Mocse from Maps, the $1,7 billion institution where he had served as chief experience officer.

At Mocse - Modesto City School Employees - he is deep in California’s central valley, an agriculture rooted area, far removed from Silicon Valley and the glitter of Los Angeles.

But Mocse members use digital banking - and Saunders resolved to give them better.

Also on this show is Nikhil Lakhanpal, Narmi co-founder who served as CEO of Georgetown University Alumni & Student Federal Credit Union when he was a student.

Nikhil joined the show in progress. For the show’s first 8 minutes Saunders is the solo guest and try as I did to get him to complain about Narmi, well, listen for yourself.

Listen up

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Most credit unions have financial literacy initiatives for members - but what if that is doing too little, too late?

This podcast explores a wholly different approach to raising financial literacy.

But, first, there’s a video for you to watch: Working Class. 31 minutes long. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a 31 minute video is worth maybe a million.

What you will see is a movie where 8th graders at a middle school get excited learning about how to budget, how to manage money.

Raub Middle School’s student body is majority Hispanic. This is not a high income neighborhood. And yet - or maybe because of that - in the course of the documentary you will see kids who really get excited about learning how to manage money.

On the podcast are Luis Soto, SVP & Managing Director, Strategy & Growth at First Commonwealth Federal Credit Union, a $1.4 billion institution headquartered in Allentown, PA; Jose Delgado, principal of Raub Middle School in Allentown; and Malcolm Critcher, the director of the film and an executive at Brink Media.

Why did First Commonwealth initiate this project? In the show you will hear why.

Why did Raub Middle School want to get involved? You’ll find out in the show.

Understand, on this show, the guests join at different times. From the beginning Critcher is on. Then Soto joins. Then Delgado.

In a few places the audio may be a bit scratchy. But audio generally is quite good so stay patient,

You are about to hear something entirely new and different.

And watch the video!

Listen up.

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Exactly what does the National Credit Union Foundation do?

I found myself pondering that question - and decided the best answer would be to getLauren Culp executive director of the Foundation on the show.

On the Foundation website, it says of itself: The National Credit Union Foundation is the charitable arm of the U.S. credit union movement. Our mission is to improve financial well-being with and through credit unions.

But the question remains: how?

Turns out that the Foundation does lots of good things, from helping educate executives into the ways of credit unions through providing disaster relief when a credit union needs it and helping foster kids achieve a measure of financial stability.

It’s all good stuff and understand: the show’s opening question is, if the Foundation disappeared tomorrow, what would change for credit unions?

As for Culp, before joining NCUF, she worked at True North Credit Union in Juneau, Filene, and CU Insight (where she served as CEO for five years). That background gives her a broad perspective on credit unions, what they do and who they are.

You’ll definitely know she’s a credit union true believer when you listen to the show.

Listen up.

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Think it’s hard to convince new members to open an account at your credit union?

Think again.

Do what the big FIs - Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank - routinely do: offer cash incentives for joining the institution.

How much? $400 to $500 are numbers often seen and sometimes the bounty climbs to as much as $1000.

Are credit unions in this too? Indeed they are, and on the show is Fred Cadena, a senior vice president at Vericast, a company that check printer Harland Clarke transformed into Upwards of 4000 banks and credit unions are Vericast customers and a big service they offer involves strategies for attracting new members and customers.

And money definitely talks in this process.

But a key is offering it intelligently. Cadena explains that this typically involves tasking the new member with doing a task or two such as setting up a recurring automatic deposit - a pay check is ideal - or perhaps swiping a debit card X times.

Financial bonuses can also help sell CDs, loans, saving accounts - there are lots of uses for these bonuses, Cadena elaborates.

Listen up.

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Year in, year out maybe 150 credit unions go out of business, mainly as a result of mergers, but a few voluntarily close and NCUA sometimes shuts a few doors.

Year in, year out new credit unions spring to life. Two or three every year.

Do the math,. It’s grim. It’s not a pleasant look into credit union futures.

Now listen to Ben Hering, formerly director of engagement at the Minnesota Credit Union Network, where he helped birth Arise Credit Union. He now is director of CU System Partnerships at consultancy CuCollaborate where his focus is on helping to stimulate the development of de novo credit unions and his near-term goal is to double today’s birth rate.

How? In today’s show he tells how and he also acknowledges the hurdles.

This isn’t an easy task to take on but, as Hering says, he’s helped do it before and he expresses optimism that he can do it again.

He will need help from many corners. Including, notably, vendors to credit unions but also the regulators and politicians.

Is Hering’s a Sisyphean pursuit?

A cautionary tale is the story of Maine Harvest, a de novo credit union featured in episode 8 of this show. Hold the applause. Maine Harvest did successfully launch. But within a couple years it unfurled a white flag and mergedinto a bigger Maine credit union.

But, for now, Hering’s is an optimistic voice.

And many more new credit unions would indeed be a wonderful thing.

Listen up.

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In the first half of 2026 credit union mergers were down, admits Peter Duffy, a mergers expert now with Strategic Resource Management - but don’t expect that to be a permanent downturn.

Mergers will pick up and there will continue to be big credits merging with big credit unions.

Duffy, who has guested on the show multiple times before, is one of the leading experts on the subject of credit union mergers. On this episode he tells why there’s been a slowing in 2026, and also why it seems an inevitability that we will see renewed interest among credit unions in doing a merger.

It was just a handful of years ago when a credit union merger was something of a rarity and when it did occur it usually was what I have long called a mercy marriage - some might call it a shotgun wedding - which meant a big credit union swallowed a little one at the request of a regulator.

What’s different now is that many - most? - credit unions have begun to see merger as a strategic gambit that just might be the right path into a more successful future.

Hear the full story about mergers in 2026 - listen up!

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We need more business members!

That could count as a credit union chant of the last decade but a reality is that many credit unions have simply not achieved their goals in terms of enrolling more business members.

Enter Goodbuy, which describes itself as “the game changing solution for credit unions, accelerating new SMB account openings.”

Now know this: Boise based Goodbuy in June registered as a CUSOand in the process it closed on a $1 million investment from One Washington Financial (OWF), Reseda Group (a wholly owned CUSO of Michigan State University Federal Credit Union), Maps Credit Union and Together Credit Union.

One Washington Financial itself is a CUSO, wholly owned by Washington State Employees Credit Union and its mission is investing in the future of credit union innovation.

On this show isScott Daukas, chief partnership officer at One Washington Financial and himself a past guest on this podcast.

Daukas explains why One Washington Financial invested in Goodbuy - WSECU itself is implementing the Goodbuy platform - and he adds that he envisions very good things for credit unions that work with Goodbuy.

Also on the show is Goodbuy CEO Cara Oppenheimer who says that Goodbuy is a credit union-branded community marketplace that helps credit unions offer exclusive local business discounts to members, creating a unique differentiator against traditional banks while driving deposit growth and engagement.

Sound good?

Oppenheimer tells the details - and she details Goodbuy successes with Michigan State University Federal Credit Union which has launched its Hello, Local which helps local businesses offer special deals to MSUFCU members, making this a win-win-win for the business, the consumer member and the credit union.

Listen up.

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You know the sad story of IBEW Local Union 712 Federal Credit Union in Beaver PA in 2020. In an institution with assets of $7.7 million the CE) managed to run up $2,1 million in credit card debt. And in May 2020 NCUA conserved the credit union.

RIP.

Except now Andy Janning, a longtime credit union expert, is on the case with a new podcast OVERDRAWN that focuses on the human costs, systemic failures, and real world consequences of this credit union failure and also on the continuing impacts on the credit union that absorbed the remains of the IBEW credit union, West Penn P & P Federal Credit Union, also in Beaver.

Janning’s approach is not what’s expected. The obvious approach is to focus on the NCUA’s failure of oversight and also on the failure of the Supervisory Committee. Janning does not ignore these threads but his vision is aimed at other elements of the story, elements that often are ignored.

Janning above all is focused on the human impacts and the stories of the people who lived through the failure of the IBEW credit union and also on West Penn employees.

His show features many of these voices. You will hear from the people themselves.

Listen up to this episode, the CU 2.0 show. And also give a listen to Janning’s Overdrawn podcast. There’s a link in the show notes.

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What does a credit union lobbyist do? On the show to answer that question isIbby Dickson, manager of federal advocacy at the League of Credit Unions, a multi-state league representing credit unions in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Virginia and there’s a merger in the works with the League of Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Can credit unions get their message across in today’s Washington DC? Spoiler alert but Dickson emphatically believes many on the Hill are indeed receptive to credit union messaging.

A case in point is how the League communicates its messages around the housing affordability crisis, a topic Dickson explored in a recentCUInsight article.

Listen up.

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Casap was the best of show winner at Finovate fall 2025 and its business is this: building AI Agents for Disputes ‍and Fraud resolution and it now has 50+ clients that it won with attention grabbing claims: Resolve claims in minutes, not weeks. Earn lasting loyalty. Cut fraud losses.

This is a universe undergoing immense change, mainly due to the rise of so-called first party fraud which has surged globally. This is in contradistinction to third party fraud and that of course is when a third party has hijacked another’s credit card or debit card and made fraudulent purchases.

First party fraud is when the cardholder denies the legitimacy of a charge he or she in fact actually made.

What? You go out on a date. It’s a bad date. With a bad meal that you put on your credit card and when you see that charge pop up on your statement you call the issuer and say, wasn’t me.

And card issuers are struggling to contain and minimize this first party fraud.

Which is where Casap enters.

On the show are Shanthi Shanmugam, CEO of Casap, and Rob Keatts, EVP of Chartway Credit Union in Virginia, a $3.1 billion institution. The show opens with only Rob on the line and we take advantage of that to ask him to tell the whole truth about the pain point that prompted Chartway to bring Casap on board and how it was working with a startup - and understand Chartway was Casap’s second customer!

Of course Shanthi joins a few minutes later and she’ll tell you what you need to know about containing credit card and debit card fraud - and how agentic AI, Casap’s forte, makes the process work more smoothly.

Filene seconds that motion, as noted in this press release headline: Chartway Credit Union Saved an Estimated $875K in One Year, Testing a Fraud Dispute Automation Fintech.

Shanthi by the way is a return guest. She stars inEpisode 359 and Casap has taken huge strides in the year since. Its client count is now 50+ and she has enormous ambition for what she believes the AI agents Casap is building can accomplish.

Listen up.

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There are times when credit union discussions about AI and how it’s transforming their operations detour into a reprise of the classicWendy’s commercial: Where’s the beef?

That is: where are the measurable benefits arising from AI use?

And then into my email box pops an email fromChristian Klacko, CEO ofKintera AI, who says his tools can be integrated into a credit union’s backoffice operations in 10 days and that the results come quickly.

What results? In a case study Kintera clicks off results attained by an anonymous $3.5 billion credit union:

• A 90% reduction in file review time - from 20 minutes to two
• Big savings result for credit unions: $250,000 in the first year at the anonymous credit union

There are still more plusses ticked off by Klacko in the show.

Skeptical? Also on the show isKris VanBeek, now CEO at Massachusetts based Rockland Federal Credit Union, soon to be renamed Arise Financial as of August 1. Rockland has been using Kintera tools for some months and VanBeek sings the praises of these AI tools - and he also talks about the reactions of employees as they put AI into action.

Understand it’s considered rude to ask a credit union exec if his institution is the anonymous one and of course I didn’t ask.

For the record, Arise Financial (nee Rockland Federal Credit Union) is a $3.7 billion institution.

Longtime listeners will recall that VanBeek is a past guest. He was in episode 172 in 2021 talking about Bank Dora, an innovative neo bank created by USAlliance, where VanBeek was CEO, and three other institutions.

Listen up.

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I will admit it, when I first heard about BNPL - buy now pay later - I snorted that layaway had died years ago.

I was wrong.

BNPL has become a huge marketplace. Federal Reserve data pegs it at around $160 billion in consumer credit products. And the scary bit for credit unions is that fintechs own over 90% of that market and they aren’t sharing with FIs.

Enter Equipifi which has as its mission empowering credit unions and community banks to offer BNPL to their members and customers.

Equipifi founder Bryce Deeney was on the showfive years ago and again three years ago to discuss the market.

That market keeps growing and more credit unions are recognizing that BNPL just may appeal to a cohort of their membership -- and it may also attract new members.

Flashforward and on the show now isLo Smith, a past podcast guest when she worked at a different company. Now she is VP, Head of Revenue at Equipifi and she is here to update us on the state of BNPL today.

Listen up.

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Corning Credit Union knewthe answers it wanted were in the data on its Symitar core - the problem was getting the answers expeditiously so the information could be put to use when it was wanted.

That wasn’t happening. Literally weeks could pass before the wanted information was in hand.

Couldn’t it be faster? Corning Credit Union got in touch with startup Tursio.

In this show Tursio co-founder and CEO Alekh Jindal tells about the solution his company crafted that lets natural language prompts get the information out of the core that employees need and it all happens quickly. Note: there’s no need to submit a ticket, no need to know code, no need to wait weeks.

How does it work? Jindal explains.

Along the way he also tells the story of the company’s birth and he reveals what happens in a founder’s mind that leads to a company’s creation.

Listen up.

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Agentic AI is coming to credit unions and Saris AI is helping lead the charge.

What is Agentic AI? Agentic AI acts as an agent that autonomously executes multi-step workflows. That is, Agentic AI does. It doesn’t tell you what to do. It does it for you.

Saris AI says it can automate 70% of tedious, complex back office tasks. It delivers a 300% productivity increase. And 9.8x cost reduction.

A core focus is lending, but Saris AI also helps with other areas of credit union operations that would benefit from automation. And that’s lots of places.

Does that sound like a revolution?

On the show are Danial Jameel, Saris CEO and a co-founder, and Chase Clelland, SVP of People and AI at Grow Financial FCU, a $3.8 billion institution headquartered in Florida.

Note that Clelland talks at length not only about the benefits of this agentic AI but how to prep employees in working with it. And Grow’s policy is no staff reductions due to AI implementations. It’s a good story about how to improve employee acceptance of these new tools that indeed represent an unfolding workplace revolution.

As for exactly what’s involved in the revolution - the technology - Jameel is the man to tell what this means for credit unions.

Know this: Clelland is adamant that the credit unions that are embracing AI will soon be in a much better place than those that don’t.

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Call this a case of two scenarios. Here’s the background: a member calls and requests to skip a payment on a loan balance. The loan term will simply extend by a month, interest continues to be collected, and there’s a fee - usually between $15 and $60 - for setting up the skipped payment.

In scenario 1 the customer service rep fields the call, talks with the member, checks to see if the member’s request complies with the institution's guidelines, and also checks to see if there are issues that disqualify this member from skipping a payment. If all’s a go, the rep takes the request to a manager, and the request then circulates up the ladder until it lands on the CEO’s desk for final approval. That’s for, say, a $200 loan skip.

In scenario 2, an agentic AI bot talks with the member, swiftly computes the eligibility, and if it’s a go, the request is approved.

Which scenario do you like?

Know that in many credit unions scenario 1 prevails and don’t even attempt to calculate the cost of approving that skip a pay request because, often, it costs more than the amount skipped. Many institutions lose money every time they approve a skip a pay request.

Of course enabling skip a pay is a genuine credit union action. This is helping the members who really need it.

Very few banks offer skip a pay because of the costs and the hassle.

But more credit unions now are offering and one reason why - in addition to the affordability issues confronting many households - is that Maine based fintech Constant AIhas rolled out an agent that already is at work in dozens of credit unions including $8.5 billion Michigan State University Federal Credit Union. And institutions as small as $100 million in assets also deploy it.

On the show is Constant AI CEO and founder Catherine York Powers, a native Mainer who, when Powersfinally could, moved her company to her home state and that is why Constant AI is based there.

Listen up.

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The headline on the CUInsight storygrabbed my attention: AI for credit unions: Making “people-first” work even better.

The author, Bonnie Ortiz, has also been a CU 2.0 Podcast guest before so I wanted to get her back on.

Ortizis the founder of 02 Consulting Group and, earlier in her career, she was the long serving COO at The Partnership Credit Union.

She’s a level headed expert on matters credit union and, in today’s AI froth, a voice that’s rooted in credit union realities is refreshing.

In her CUInsight piece, she lays out three steps for implementing and getting results from AI initiatives in credit unions. Her counsel is practical, realistic and, let’s be honest, too many credit unions think they are getting started in AI but many are at best dabbling and can point to scant actual results.

Ortiz talks in detail in the show about the three steps. Take notes. You are going to want to heed her counsel.

Listen up.

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What do we do next?

That’s a question heard in most credit union executive suites and boardrooms and what it is focused on is AI.

Artificial intelligence suddenly has become the tech that matters among credit unions but there’s just one problem: few actually have concrete ideas about how and where to use AI.

EnterKirk Drake, CEO of the digital consultancy CU 2.0, author of the 2020 book FINANCIAL which put an early spotlight on AI and credit unions. He now has joinedwith Tansley Stearns, CEO of Orsa Credit Union, a $1.47 billion institution, to create a CUSO with a singular focus of helping credit unions adopt AI tools and put them to meaningful, good uses.

The CUSO already is working with 10+ credit unions, says Drake, who expects the total to hit 20 by year-end. Sizes range from around $500 million in assets to $7 billion.

A key is that the CUSO already has developed a range of AI tools that are available for members to use - and it also provides coaching on how best to put the tools to use.

Here’s the reality: the advent of AI may turn into an extinction event for many credit unions. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Indeed AI has the potential to help credit unions of all sizes to match the efficiencies of even the biggest banks. It’s potentially a great equalizer. The key is getting credit unions up and running with AI and Drake’s team has accepted this mission.

In the show he tells in some detail what credit unions can expect - and how to prosper with AI in hand.

Listen up.

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The Student Choice CUSO, built around student loans, is expanding and now has introduced a program that will enable credit unions to issue small dollar, emergency loans to members with no credit check.

These are not payday loans. Interest rates are capped at 18% per NCUA policies.

How can this be? On the show is Scott Patterson, ceo of Student Choice, and the episode starts with a view into the current state of student loans and the big changes that are transforming the market.

But Patterson came on the show to talk up the newEmployer Choice program that will enable credit unions to make small dollar loans to employees of SEGs and to do so with little risk.

What kind of voodoo is this? Patterson explains and it’s definitely not voodoo.The key is that the lending is tied into the employee’s payroll system. Yes, there is no credit check but “instead [there are] employment-based underwriting factors, including job tenure, income stability, and employer characteristics.”

Patterson elaborates on this in the show.

The first credit union up with Employer Choice is Affinity Plus Credit Union in Minnesota which, Patterson indicated,has started by offering the program to its own employees.

Other credit unions, says Patterson, want to start by offering the program to SEGs who will set this up as an employee benefit. So, says Patterson, this has the potential to become a new member acquisition tool.

Remember this: estimates are that half of American families do not have $1000 on hand for emergencies. A friction-free emergency loan program just might be the life raft many families need and, says Patterson, credit unions can play a big part in helping out those families in need - and doing so at small risk and also low interest rates.

Listen up.

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Meet Storyfi - the NACUSO New CUSO of the Year for 2026.

When I saw the press release I had to get Nick Olexa, CEO of Storyfi, a Michigan based CUSO owned by six Michigan credit unions.

What Storyfi is doing is important - it’s harnessing video to help credit unions tell their stories and it’s working within credit union budgets.

That matters because, nowadays, video is the globe’s communication tool of choice. Whether it’s a 7 second video on Facebook or a 3 hour video on Netflix, video genuinely is how the world tells and communicates its stories and, frankly, credit unions had been lagging at this.

An upshot is that, in the main, credit union marketing has been blah.

Storyfi’s purpose is to reverse that reality. To really get credit union stories told well.

Understand: every credit union has a story. So does every CUSO. Most of the stories revolve around solving problems and, often, working through adversities. So these are good, compelling, human stories. And in video they shine.

Since its 2023 founding, Storyfi has worked with around 140 organizations to tell their stories.

On the show, Olexa tells Storyfi’s origin story, the kinds of videos it creates for customers, and why all this really matters in thinking of the credit union future.

Listen up.

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Is the country finally ready for a safe banking act that in effect legalizes cannabis businesses at the federal level?

In recent years multiple bills doing essentially that were passed by the House of Representatives only to be buried in a Senate committee that never reported it out for a floor vote.

There’s a new House bill in play and this time may be the charm, says Terry Mendez, CEO of Safe Harbor and a past podcast guest. Safe Harbor has provided the tools credit unions to offer cannabis banking services since it opened in 2015.

According to Safe Harbor, the current bill would:

• Bar federal banking regulators from prohibiting or discouraging banks from serving state-legal cannabis businesses
• Bar regulators from terminating or limiting a bank's deposit insurance because it serves a cannabis client
• Create a safe harbor from criminal prosecution, liability, and asset forfeiture for banks and their officers/employees serving legitimate state-sanctioned cannabis businesses, while preserving banks' right to decline that business
• Extend protection to ancillary businesses serving cannabis operators, including lawyers, landlords, and vendors

By the way, the American Banking Association has come out in support of the act. In a letterto Senate leaders ABA said the bill would “provide important legal and regulatory clarity” and “address a significant challenge facing American businesses, our communities, and the banks that serve them.”

On the show Mendez elaborates on why he believes the bill has a good chance of becoming law.

Listen up.

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