by
Catalyst Corporate | Sep 30, 2022
The financial services landscape has drastically evolved over the last 2½ years, leaving behind an abundance of new challenges for today’s credit unions to navigate. Keeping with its timely theme, “Future Vision: Unfolding Our New Environment,” this year’s Economic & Payments Forum focused on delivering solutions to address those challenges.
One session, in particular, drew from the collective brainpower of attendees to accomplish just that. New to the 2022 lineup, Catalyst Corporate hosted an engaging Idea Exchange, which generated a total of 402 total responses from 22 groups of credit union leaders during the 1-hour session.
Positioned around the question, “What keeps you awake at night?” this collaborative group discussion addressed eight “top challenges” as identified by participants in Catalyst Corporate’s 2022 Member Insights Survey. Challenges were: generating loans, reducing fraud/enhancing cybersecurity, attracting and retaining qualified talent, growing CU membership, creating fee income, modernizing payments technology, effectively managing liquidity and defining successful virtual/hybrid work models.
The Idea Exchange was led by C12 Business Forums Chair Mike Gullatt. Gullatt works with CEOs and business owners to help them scale and build strong businesses with a greater purpose. His insights, along with previous credit union industry experience, made him the ideal facilitator for this session.
Gullatt kicked things off by splitting the room into two groups; each had a separate list of questions which the tables discussed individually.
Among the topics generating the most conversation were:
- Creating fee income
- Attracting and/or retaining qualified talent
- Modernizing payments technology
One by one, the room shared best practices and specifics related to the challenges faced at their own credit unions. Many thought-provoking and useful solutions emerged from the group exercise.
First up, generating fee income.
The topic of increasing fee income sparked a lot of buzz, as it often makes the list of annual credit union initiatives. In the post-pandemic climate, existing solutions may require modification and some creative thinking. Forum attendees presented various ideas, such as mortgage origination fees, investment and wealth management service charges, and fees for subscription-based checking rewards programs to help produce additional credit union revenue.
Next: attracting and/or retaining qualified talent.
Talent acquisition and retention is an undeniable, nationwide issue currently, so its discussion at Forum 2022 was almost guaranteed. Some of the credit union solutions proffered included flex-scheduling (or providing appealing work from home options), competitive benefits with an attractive 401(k) offering, strong career growth and recognition programs and a relaxed dress code.
And last, but certainly not least, modernizing payments and technology.
Finding smart, strategic ways of adopting new payments services and institutional technology has proven to be another hot topic within the financial services industry lately – and it ranked high with Forum attendees. FedNowSM Service/instant payments implementation, ITM integration, tap-to-pay/mobile wallet capabilities and enhanced member experiences around online account openings and the loan application process were just some of the many answers shared by roundtable participants.
All in all, uncovering common pain points and swapping solutions helped bring to light new, innovative ways to address pervasive industry problems. The experience ultimately served as a further example of people helping people and the collective efforts that continue to drive the credit union industry forward.
Forum attendees will receive a follow-up email within the next couple of weeks that provides a complete list of the topics and ideas submitted during this session. For more session coverage from Catalyst Corporate’s 2022 Economic & Payments Forum, check out the on-demand content, and be sure to join us next year! Idea Exchange Details & Notes: PowerPoint File | PDF File