Growth & Technology - Two Credit Union CEOs Plan for Future Growth

As many of your financial institutions are working through the strategic planning process, we wanted to share some insights we've gathered from leaders in the industry. So we reached out to several Credit Union CEOs we work with and asked them about their plans for the future.

Here's a couple of items that seem to be popular on their lists for how to plan to grow your Financial Institution:

#1 CU Leadership Priority for the Future:

Technology is King

According to Jim Garvey, CEO of St. Mary's CU, a $800+ million credit union headquartered in Marlborough, MA, "our biggest priority is to migrate our operating core to a new platform which will allow us to offer our members a significant upgrade to their mobile banking experience."

This seems to be a common goal for CUs we are talking with. Maximizing their mobile performance to entice new members and retain existing ones. "Mobile banking is quickly becoming the major touch point between members and the credit union and we must offer top of the line mobile banking."

We are also seeing a huge number of credit unions planning for full website redesigns in the coming months. Many CU sites today are simply glorified digital brochures. But more and more progressive institutions are looking for ways to better monitize these online assets and turn them into lead generating machines.

#2 CU Leadership Priority for 2017:

Growth & Mission

Marshall Boutwell, CEO of Peach State FCU, a growing Atlanta area CU with $400+ million in assets, remarked that "our strategy for growth includes merging with smaller CUs that are struggling so we can provide a full compliment of products and services to those members."

Dedicated to the credit union mission of serving working people and focusing on members who may not be the highest earners, Marshall says "people are worried about competition from high tech, but we think there's still a lot of people who need high touch."

Now, priority #2 might seem to fly in the face of priority #1, but in fact "the continued build out of our online account opening utilizing social media/marketing to attract new and existing members" is also a huge priority for St. Mary's, according to Jim Garvey. His CU's strategy involves content production that personalizes the financial institution and provides real benefit to members and potential new members via e-books, blogs and checklists on topics of interest to their readers.

So in a sense high touch and high tech can converge!

Here's another resource - 12 Steps to Grow Your Financial Institution that you might also find useful. 

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