Banking For Americans Abroad

We talk with Nate Robertson about what it takes to run a truly global credit union for State Department members and Americans living abroad, from shutdown uncertainty to the everyday friction of banking systems that were never built for foreign addresses. We dig into how a new leadership team uses liquidity planning, revamped lending, and smarter digital tools to return real value to members who are constantly on the move.

• leadership turnover as a chance to reassess strategy and operations
• communicating support during uncertainty through targeted member messaging
• balance sheet flexibility to protect liquidity and seize opportunities
• redesigned lending programs to win back member borrowing
• remote mortgage closing for members stationed overseas
• Wise integration for faster international transfers and simpler money movement
• why Americans abroad are underserved and underbanked
• hiring overseas employees to build products around lived experience
• vendor and system limitations with foreign addresses and phone numbers
• advice on deploying liquidity as spreads tighten

Transcript

Mike Ensweiler (Intro - 0:10)

Welcome everyone to "In Your Best Interest," an ALM First podcast, a show that explores common depository challenges, giving you an insider's view of the latest market trends and shares stories and insights from industry leaders. I'm your host, Mike Ensweiler.

Financial institutions today face the challenge of truly understanding and meeting their members' unique needs in an increasingly complex world. For credit unions serving global memberships, this challenge is amplified—from managing balance sheets during government shutdowns and budget uncertainty to overcoming basic technological barriers like foreign addresses and phone numbers. Success requires not just acknowledging these differences, but fundamentally redesigning products, services, and operations around them.

Today, I'm joined by Nate Robertson, Chief Financial Officer of State Department Federal Credit Union, a 90-year-old institution serving Americans deployed around the globe. He'll share how a new management team is reimagining what it means to serve a global membership, from facilitating mortgage settlements while members are overseas, to hiring employees abroad who personally understand the expat experience. We'll explore the unique challenges of serving underbanked Americans living internationally, practical strategies for deploying capital in today's economic environment, and why deeply understanding member needs—whether local or global—should be every credit union's top priority.

=========================================================================================

Mike Ensweiler 1:40

Nate, welcome to the show! 

Nate Robertson 1:43

Great to be here. I'm very excited to be here and also excited to be here at the ALM First Financial Institute. This is a great opportunity to learn and to deepen our relationship with ALM First.

Mike Ensweiler 1:54

So fun fact I wanted to share as we get started. I was actually an intern at State Department Federal Credit Union back in 1990. I thought for a period of time I wanted to work as a foreign service officer and CIA or something like that. And so I was able to get an internship at the State Department- at the State Department branch, which is really cool. So I was part teller and part helping the marketing team. Um, you know, when the new Foreign Service Officer classes came in, just talking about the credit union and how cool it was. So this one's extra special for me because I feel like I have a little bit of a bond to the credit union.

Nate Robertson 2:31

Well, that's amazing. That branch is still there, it's still there, the State Department building, and we have the employees there helping out those new classes as they come in. So it's very exciting.

Mike Ensweiler 2:40

Yeah, and when I was there, at least that was a very high volume cash branch. I don't know if that's still the case or not, but that was yeah, that was a great teller training, that's for sure, especially on paydays. So um, you know, I shared a fun fact. What's a fun fact about you that most people don't know?

Nate Robertson 2:57

Oh, fun fact about me, uh well, I would say that this new opportunity- I've been with State Department Federal Credit Union now for about almost a year and a half now-and this is an entirely new experience for me because previous in my career, I've worked for over 20 years at credit unions that are very community focused. But this is a new opportunity to work for a credit union that is very much of global credit union and focused on a global membership. And so yeah, so it's an interesting and unique challenge that I've been doing.

Mike Ensweiler 3:37

I bet that brings all kinds of interesting challenges, so that which is a great lead-in. Um, so State Department of Federal Credit Union just celebrated 90 years of service. You have pretty much a brand-new management team as well and you have a different kind of field of membership than a lot of other credit unions. So, you know, as you're coming in, as a lot of the other management team members are coming in, how has how have these dynamics impacted your priorities and how you strategically plan for the credit union?

Nate Robertson 4:08

Yeah, that's a great question. Coming in with a new management team- our CEO has now been there coming up on three years, but it's been a great opportunity for us to look at everything from top to bottom to really assess where we were at as a credit union and where we sought opportunity where we could kind of take the credit union in the state that it was in and help it move forward. Uh, so we looked at all the processes, all the procedures, and really updated a lot. 

And so it's been a lot of change, and so that's been a unique challenge is managing through that change. But it's also brought in unique opportunities to re-engage with our uh main segment, which is the Department of State, to really understand the needs, the unique needs that they have, and really work with them to make sure that we fulfill those needs.

Mike Ensweiler 5:10

So let's talk about that a little bit. So you have some unique needs, your field of membership is government employees, essentially, right? So the last year or so we've seen shutdowns, including right now, we've seen DOGE, we've seen budget uncertainty. So, how has that shaped the way you manage the balance sheet and plan ahead?

Nate Robertson 5:30

First of all, from the member side, we really have to communicate with our members to let them know that we're there for them. As you mentioned, it's a time of uncertainty for our membership base because whether they work for Department of State or whether they're Americans residing overseas, there's a lot of uncertainty. So we have to help them know that as their financial institution, we're there for them. We get that word out through you know, proactive messaging- through emails, webinars, digital banking ads, website pages- that are dedicated to letting them know about what resources we have to offer them. You know, whether it's a deferment on a loan payment, or if they need funds quickly during a government shutdown, they can withdraw from a CD with no penalty or different things like that. But on the balance sheet side, we definitely have to make sure that we're positioned so that we can offer these things to our members so that we can make sure to take care of their needs during these times of uncertainty. 

So we need to make sure that we have the flexibility within our budget to expand and contract as needed, to have the liquidity that we need, and be able to take opportunities. And another way we've done that is we really revamped recently our lending propositions to really make those loan programs very favorable to our members and generate interest so that they'll look to us more for their lending needs. Unfortunately, there was a prior misconception that many of our members, since they're overseas so much that they don't borrow as much. But as we dug in and looked into that, we found that not really to be true. They were borrowing and just not borrowing with us as much as we would like. So we've really dug into understanding their needs so that they will think of us first when they need to borrow instead of going elsewhere.

Mike Ensweiler 7:46

So I'd like to dig into that a little bit if that's OK. So you've created some different opportunities in lending. So what does that mean? Do you have different programs, unique programs? I mean, you mentioned a little bit kind of the payment deferral when you know during shutdowns and things like that, but what are some of the other lending programs that that are maybe a little bit different or unique than you've experienced in the past?

Nate Robertson 8:08

Yeah, one thing that's unique is that many of our members, as I mentioned, are deployed overseas and then they come back and move back to the US. So, they're coming and going all the time, but oftentimes there's a need for them to maybe settle on a mortgage while they are overseas. That’s kind of a unique opportunity and something that- we're one of the only institutions that do that- that allow them to get a mortgage through us, settle on that mortgage, and do everything completely remotely while they're overseas. We look for ways to facilitate that. So, when they come back to the United States, their home is already ready for them. It’s kind of things like that we look for and do in a way that many other financial institutions are not able to.

Mike Ensweiler 9:03

And is that resonating with your membership? The fact that you guys are bending over backwards essentially to accommodate a very challenging lifestyle?

=========================================================================================

Testimonial Disclosure: The following statement is from a [current member, client, etc]. No compensation was provided. Experiences may not be representative. 

=========================================================================================

Nate Robertson 9:12

Yeah, it definitely does. In fact, it was very interesting, and we're starting to get very positive feedback on these types of programs and different things that we offer. We were very pleased. We got a comment from a pretty high-ranking official at the State Department recently that they said in all their career, they've been overseas on many assignments, every single place they've gone, they've had to open a local account with a local financial institution just because of the complexities of transferring things back and forth. 

Well, they mentioned that in their most recent deployment, because of their account with State Department Federal Credit Union, they were able to not have to open an account locally. And they were so pleased with that because we have new integration. We offered a new online banking and digital uh mobile solution recently, which integrated with WISE, which allows and facilitates international transactions and makes it very quick and very easy for them to move funds internationally. So that's been a huge benefit to our members, and our members love that.

=================================================================================

Disclosure: ALM First does not receive compensation from WISE. Third-party services involve separate terms and risks.

=================================================================================

Mike Ensweiler 10:29

Does that flexibility- how does that change pricing? Are you able to charge a little bit of a premium to accommodate kind of outside of the box programs like that?

Nate Robertson 10:43

So currently that integration is with WISE, so any fees that are charged- we don't currently take any portion of that. WISE has fees for changing funds into different currencies and things like that, but it they're much less than an international wire or different options like that or sending via Western Union. We try to make it affordable for our members as much as possible. So we're not currently charging any fees, we just uh WISE charges the fees within their system.

Mike Ensweiler 11:23

How about on the lending side? Because you're accommodating, closing overseas, and doing all these things, are they still getting the same mortgage rate that they might get domestically?

Nate Robertson 11:33

They are, yeah. It's just as if they were doing that mortgage here in the United States versus doing the mortgage overseas. They get the same pricing, so it's a huge benefit for our members. 

Mike Ensweiler 11:48

We talked about- you don't have the community field of membership, you have members all over the globe. So let's talk about that international piece a little bit, because well, certainly some other defense credit unions have international members and probably face some of the same challenges. I also know that depending on where some of the branches are for some of the military credit unions, they have to hire locally. So that poses all kinds of challenges as well. I know you're exploring expansion to international employees working abroad. What's the opportunity there? How do you guys look at that?

Nate Robertson 12:24

Well, there's huge opportunity, because we found as we've really dug into this, that Americans abroad are very underserved and underbanked. It’s really difficult for them to maintain access to U.S. accounts. In fact, a lot of times we found that people that move overseas- whether it's with the Department of State or we have partnerships with several other SEGs that support Americans that live abroad- we've heard so many stories of people that move abroad and their account gets shut down with little to no notice. And just because they've moved abroad, and so that makes it extremely difficult for them to meet their financial needs. So we see that as a huge opportunity for us if we can step in and be that trusted support and trusted advisor for how to bank overseas. In fact, we've started a monthly webinar uh that we put on that just discusses what it's like banking overseas, and we've seen a lot of great interactions with our members that that attend these webinars and ask all kinds of questions. 

One of the ways that these webinars have become successful is because we also are expanding some employee employment opportunities overseas. So we have employees that reside overseas. Our chief Experience Officer currently resides in Paris, France, and most of her career has been overseas, and so she uniquely and very personally understands what it's like to be an American living abroad, and understands the needs that our members have in a way that many institutions here in the US don't understand or don't get what it's like to have those experiences living abroad. And so that's been great. And so we've hired two more employees in recent history that live abroad so that they can help support our members and know exactly what they're experiencing. That helps guide us as we consider new products and services so that we can really understand what can benefit our members the most.

Mike Ensweiler 14:49

Which is great, especially for a membership like yours. Because you don't have any branches overseas, correct?

Nate Robertson 14:54

We do not have branches overseas, but the State Department has- they have embassies and consulates, over 270 overseas. So we have members probably at most of those most of those sites. While we don't have any branches overseas, we're constantly meeting with embassies and consulates to discuss opportunities and discuss ways in which we can support them and support their employees while they're overseas.

Mike Ensweiler 15:26

So, what are the practical challenges of serving an increasingly global membership?

Nate Robertson 15:32

Yeah, there's a lot of challenges. I will give you some- one of the most basic challenges is that a lot of US banking systems are not designed to support foreign addresses or foreign phone numbers. So something as simple as: “how do I put my foreign address and my foreign telephone number into your banking system?” Lots of systems can't handle it. So when we're talking to vendors and when we're talking to partners that have services that we want to offer our members, that's often one of the first questions we ask. Do you support foreign addresses and foreign phone numbers? 

And if they say no, then that's kind of the first strike against them. It’s something that we're not willing to move forward with a less than optimal um experience for our members. But that that's a very basic, but it's a huge challenge, and it's a challenge that our members face every single day with other institutions that they try to work with. 

Mike Ensweiler 16:38

That’s one that I never would have thought of. Something as simple as that. I'm thinking international currency and just some of those kinds of things. So, from your seat in the stadium, as you look at the industry as a whole, what are some of the things that you think you know credit union leaders should be paying attention to right now?

Nate Robertson 17:04

So, I think we should definitely be paying attention to- as I've mentioned already in this discussion- just really understanding and getting to the core needs of our members. Whether it's a community charter that you have or a seg-based charter like we currently have with a global membership, if you really understand their needs, then you can uniquely look for opportunities to meet those needs. I think that's a huge focus for us right now, and I think it should be a focus for any credit union because I think sometimes we lose sight of what our what our core meaning is for our members, and that's to return value to them. And so if we really dig in and understand how we can provide that value to them, I think it makes a beneficial relationship for the member and also for the credit union.

Mike Ensweiler 18:03

Alright, I'm going to change gears on you a little bit, but along the same vein. So as you think about - having spent your career primarily in credit unions managing balance sheet and that kind of thing and now obviously with some new and unique challenges where you're at right now, what's one piece of advice that you'd give credit union leaders listening today about managing their balance sheet in navigating today's economic challenges?

Nate Robertson 18:30

Yeah, so there's a lot of challenges, and it's a very unique situation that we're in right now. And so when navigating that with your balance sheet, it's really something that we look at is where we're positioned and what opportunities that we have out there. Right now on our own balance sheet, we're looking at ways to deploy capital. And so we've been working very closely with our advisors at ALM First to look for new opportunities and ways that we can take some of that- we've had been in a great liquidity position- but we want to make sure that we can put those funds to use. And so that's something that that we're looking at, and I think all credit unions should be looking at is what can we do with that liquidity that we've fortunately had, but now that that interest rates have been trending down a little bit and spreads have gotten tighter, what is there to that we can look to redeploy some of that capital? And that's what we're looking at right now, and I think all credit unions should be looking at that.

Mike Ensweiler 19:44

Yeah, I think that's a great piece of advice. Well, our time is coming to an end, so any closing thoughts that you'd like to share?

Nate Robertson 19:52

As a closing thought, it's just it's been a great opportunity in the short time that I've been with State Department Federal Credit Union to really dig in, understand the situation that we're in, and understand the unique needs of our members, and that's been great to help me go back to “Ok, how can we help push that forward as a new management team at our organization?” And so it's been it's been great and very exciting time. The times of uncertainty are interesting because it brings risk, but it also brings opportunity.

Mike Ensweiler 20:33

Absolutely. I think that's a great way to leave the show. Thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing your insights. I wish you nothing but the best of success at State Department for you and your membership.

Nate Robertson 20:46

Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it. And anytime you want to come back and work with us, we'd be happy to have you.

Mike Ensweiler (Outro - 20:55)

As we conclude our discussion on serving global memberships and navigating uncertainty, it's clear that success comes from truly understanding member needs and being willing to build your institution around those needs rather than forcing members to adapt to your limitations. The conversation with Nate from State Department Federal Credit Union highlighted several critical practices that distinguish institutions that genuinely serve their members from those that simply process transactions.

Three key takeaways from today's conversation:

First, understand before you build—State Department FCU discovered their members were borrowing, just not with them, leading to a complete revamp of lending propositions based on actual member needs rather than assumptions, demonstrating that deep member understanding drives product innovation and growth.

Second, meet members where they are—from hiring employees who live abroad and personally understand the expat experience to offering mortgage settlements for deployed members and integrating with WISE for international transactions, the credit union built its operations around member reality rather than institutional convenience.

And lastly, the basics matter most—something as simple as accepting foreign addresses and phone numbers became a litmus test for vendor partnerships, proving that serving unique memberships often requires solving fundamental challenges that other institutions overlook or ignore.

Thank you for joining us on "In Your Best Interest." We hope this discussion provides valuable perspective as you consider how deeply you understand your own members' needs and whether your products, services, and systems are truly designed around them.

=========================================================================================

DISCLAIMER (22:06)

The content in this podcast is provided for information purposes and should not be relied upon as recommendations for financial planning advice. We encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding all investment decisions. Current and future holdings are subject to risk and past performance has no guarantee of future results. International transactions may involve currency and regulatory risks. Lending is subject to credit approval and market conditions. Podcasts should not be copied, distributed, published or reproduced in whole or in part. Information presented herein is for discussion and illustrative purposes only and is not a recommendation or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities.

The views and opinions expressed by the ALM First financial Advisors speakers are their own as of the date of the recording. Any such views are subject to change at any time based upon market or other conditions, and ALM First Financial Advisors disclaims any responsibility to update such views. These views should not be relied on as investment advice and, because investment decisions are based on numerous factors, may not be relied on as an indication of trading intent on behalf of any ALM First Financial Advisors product. Neither ALM First Financial Advisors nor the Speaker can be held responsible for any direct or incidental loss incurred by applying any of the information offered. Any client experiences referenced are not indicative of all client experiences and were not compensated. Services described may involve risks, including market, credit, and operational risks. Third-party services are subject to their own terms and conditions, and we do not receive compensation unless otherwise disclosed. 

ALM First Financial Advisors is an SEC-registered investment advisor with a fiduciary duty that requires it to act in the best interest of clients and to place the interest of clients before its own. However, registration as an investment advisor does not imply any level of skill or training.