In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Alex Johnson underscores the idea that knowledge is power when it comes to credit unions' success in understanding and making decisions about fintech. The creator and author of the Fintech Takes newsletter, Johnson describes ways credit union leaders can track trends in fintech and even recommends several of his favorite fintech resources.
In the show, Johnson also emphasizes the importance of credit unions staying strategic as they contemplate fintech and how to engage with it.
“I think when you’re trying to decide … what’s hyped or overhyped or maybe not hyped up enough, … it needs to be done through the lens of … who are members or customers and what problems are we trying to solve for them? And how does this technology contribute to that goal?” he says.
“We don’t have unlimited resources to throw at this stuff,” he adds. “We don’t have an unlimitedly large technology staff or sometimes any technology staff at all. We don’t have a huge budget for this stuff. And so you do have to pick your spots very carefully."
In the show, Johnson uses P2P, digital account opening and chatbots like ChatGPT as examples of technology that might be super interesting to credit union leaders. And yet, he says, sorting out where to spend your time in fintech must be driven more by member needs than by a keen interest in any particular technology or a desire to keep up with a competitor.
“If you ever find yourself making a decision around technology or fintech that is in any way motivated by a feeling of, ‘We’re missing out, oh, it’s embarrassing that we don’t have this and our peers do,’ that’s just a terrible motivation,” he says in the show. “And I would try almost to sort of train your brain to recognize that motivation because it’s very natural, and it creeps in that drives all of our decision-making all the time. But to the degree you can identify and sort of stamp out that motivation when making these decisions, I think that’ll help in focusing on the things that really are strategically the most important.”
The show also gets into
Links for this show
In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Alex Johnson underscores the idea that knowledge is power when it comes to credit unions' success in understanding and making decisions about fintech. The creator and author of the Fintech Takes newsletter, Johnson describes ways credit union leaders can track trends in fintech and even recommends several of his favorite fintech resources.
In the show, Johnson also emphasizes the importance of credit unions staying strategic as they contemplate fintech and how to engage with it.
“I think when you’re trying to decide … what’s hyped or overhyped or maybe not hyped up enough, … it needs to be done through the lens of … who are members or customers and what problems are we trying to solve for them? And how does this technology contribute to that goal?” he says.
“We don’t have unlimited resources to throw at this stuff,” he adds. “We don’t have an unlimitedly large technology staff or sometimes any technology staff at all. We don’t have a huge budget for this stuff. And so you do have to pick your spots very carefully."
In the show, Johnson uses P2P, digital account opening and chatbots like ChatGPT as examples of technology that might be super interesting to credit union leaders. And yet, he says, sorting out where to spend your time in fintech must be driven more by member needs than by a keen interest in any particular technology or a desire to keep up with a competitor.
“If you ever find yourself making a decision around technology or fintech that is in any way motivated by a feeling of, ‘We’re missing out, oh, it’s embarrassing that we don’t have this and our peers do,’ that’s just a terrible motivation,” he says in the show. “And I would try almost to sort of train your brain to recognize that motivation because it’s very natural, and it creeps in that drives all of our decision-making all the time. But to the degree you can identify and sort of stamp out that motivation when making these decisions, I think that’ll help in focusing on the things that really are strategically the most important.”
The show also gets into
Links for this show