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The CU2.0 Podcast
This podcast explores contemporary, critical thinking and issues impacting the nation's credit unions. What do they need to be doing to not just survive but prosper?
The CU2.0 Podcast
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 385 Inside the Mind of Ascend CU's CIO Rik Reitmaier
Rik Reitmaier is CIO at Tennessee based Ascend Federal Credit Union, with $4.4 billion in assets and 245,000. That puts Ascend in the nation’s top 100 credit unions. And Reitmaier is on the show to talk about the wide range of issues, worries and concerns that are on his mind.
AI of course is high on that list and Reitmaier explains both Ascend’s position on AI today and why he thinks it’s the right course. Hint: many Ascend employees are already using Copilot.
There already are productivity enhancements due to Copilot use - Reitmaier gives the details.
Cyber fraud of course is a big issue for Ascend and here we hear the credit union’s multi-pronged approach to defending itself in an age of ever smarter crooks.
Reitmaier also discussed Ascend’s procedure for adopting new technologies,
Listen up.
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Welcome to the CU2.0 podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, and welcome to the CU 2.0 podcast with big new ideas about credit unions and conversations about innovative technology with credit union and fintech leaders. This podcast is brought to you by Quillo, the Real-Time Loan Syndication Network for Credit Unions, and by your host, long-time credit union and financial technology journalist Robert McGarvey. And now the CU 2.0 podcast with Robert McGarvey.
SPEAKER_01:Rick Reitmeyer is CIO of Tennessee-based Ascend Federal Credit Union with$4.4 billion in assets and 245,000 members. That puts Ascend in the nation's top 100 credit unions. And Reitmeyer is on the show to talk about the wide range of issues, worries, and concerns that are on his mind. AI, of course, is high on that list. And Reitmeyer explains both Ascend's position on AI today and why he thinks it's the right course. Hint, many Ascend employees are already using Copilot. There already are productivity enhancements due to that copilot use. Reitmeier gives the details. Cyber fraud, of course, is a big issue for Ascend. And here we hear about the Credit Union's multi-pronged approach to defending itself in an age of ever smarter crooks. Reitmeyer also discussed Ascend's procedure for adopting new technology. That's fascinating stuff. Stuff every fintech executive should listen to. Listen up. So I'm I'm looking forward to this because your credit union is big enough where you can talk about all sides of the AI issue. And what do I mean by all sides? AI is a force for scamsters that have gotten very, very, very good. But on the other hand, it's also can be harnessed by credit unions to fight back. And as for the scams getting really good, like a month or two ago, a friend sent me a video of Pope Leo giving a homily. Uh except he didn't never gave this homily. Absolutely not. He wouldn't have given this homily. But it was his voice, it was his face. Everything it was exquisite. And in fact, my friend had gotten it from a Dominican priest who said, Wow, this is this is really changing everything. It's and it would have if he'd said these things, not necessarily in a good way, but uh he never said them. But so reasonably smart people were taken in by this. So the fakes have gotten really good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I was taken back with uh something that's on Instagram that's I guess somehow I got on the feed is um uh Mr. Rogers, they're now doing Mr. Rogers uh AI with uh rappers. And I'm like, when I first saw it, I'm like, well, I never knew Tupac Shakur was a Mr. Rogers show. And then I heard what they had to say. I'm like, there's no way that this is true.
SPEAKER_01:But no, America's children were not exposed to this.
SPEAKER_02:But it's it sounded perfectly like you know, Mr. Rogers and how you would you know act and all that. So yeah, brave new world, brave new world.
SPEAKER_01:So let's let's start with a um uh probably an easier question. How are you how is your credit union using AI today? And I ask because you're big enough where you could be doing some stuff. Most credit unions are kind of putzing around saying, wow, we're we're yeah, okay. But that they're not really doing much.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so first thing what we what we've done is um we've inst instituted co-pilot for Microsoft. And so uh probably about we have about 600 employees, and probably about 120 of them now have co-pilot as uh something they use day to day. Um so we there's a couple different types of copilots that we've enabled. One is called analyst and one is called researcher. Um, so that uh certain folks um that require deep research, uh, they can use that tool and you know start building prompts and asking questions. Um I I've used it and I've I've done some you know pretty cool analysis and research in about a day that may have taken me three or four weeks to do, and maybe not even know where all these places where to go to all these places to to do the research. So uh very um very productive for us. We also use it for Teams. Uh so we do um a lot of our uh meetings, we record them and then we do uh a summary of to-dos and you know what was said, so that if people weren't able to make the meeting that they could um uh review it, review them the session, and or just be able to you know take notes so you're more focused on having a conversation with the team versus trying to take notes and have a conversation. Um we're also um our phone system has some capabilities of AI. We haven't turned it on yet because we're making sure that all the intents uh and our data is correct. Uh but uh the hope is to turn that on uh soon so that uh instead of having a phone call to our call service or call our uh call center uh with you know mundane questions, that those can be self-serviced. And then we just implemented a new knowledge management system uh that now all of our employees have access to so they can ask questions of the knowledge management system, and uh it will give a very similar like Google uh AI Gemini response back and also give the reference material that it's getting the information from.
SPEAKER_01:What's your sense of the comfort level of your membership with AI?
SPEAKER_02:Um we we think still that you know it's it's kind of an emerging thing, right? So I think AI is in the first innings of a nine-inning game, right? So I think most of our members are probably using it uh personally, but maybe might not be as comfortable, you know, interacting it with uh a financial institution. But you know, that's why we're gonna go slow. Um, you know, my my sense and the and when we speak with the business about AI, our data has to be right, right? So we need to do that first. We'll probably use AI to help our agents and our employees first. And as the employees get used to it and feel comfortable at it, as we're doing testing through, you know, are we getting the right answers? Uh, then we'll we'll feel trusted to potentially, you know, give this to our members and just have another way of communicating giving our members the ability to communicate with us um and get answers. So um, you know, the hope is that you know we'll have good data, we'll have uh great answers for them, and then they can begin to trust it. But I would still think it's pretty early, early days for us to say that you know anybody will just trust it outright.
SPEAKER_01:Hey man, 18 months ago, if I'd asked a hundred pretty smart people in the credit union world, what's an LLM? Maybe maybe one would have gotten it right.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, uh 100%.
SPEAKER_01:Uh and that shows you nowadays, I would expect the vast majority would have some idea of what an LLM means. It's uh Yeah, and and I would also say speed is just ridiculous. I mean, I've never seen anything like this.
SPEAKER_02:And I would also say that we're probably gonna be fast followers here, right? I I think what we're gonna we're gonna see the you know the the the FIs that are you know more technical FIs that are out there, they're probably gonna be the ones that are lead the the way for us. And then uh we're we're kind of monitoring how those you know digital natives uh are interacting with customers and members, and then we'll probably use their cues to say what we begin to implement uh you know in our environment. But uh I don't think we will be you know leading edge stuff uh uh uh credit union. I think we'll be more fast followers.
SPEAKER_01:Well, um I assume you're concerned about what big banks are doing with AI. I know I'm kind of obsessed with what Chase and Bank of America are doing with it because these these are starting to they're starting to devour so much of banking. It's uh and they're spending a lot of money on AI right now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, um again, I I I look at it as is they if the data is right, then it will be very valuable. But if the data is wrong and you're getting poor answers, or you're getting poor service, or you're getting pushed back to a human, it's going to be not a great experience. So we're keeping a key keen eye on you know how they're developing their services and how um how useful they are. And uh from there we'll we'll take our our um you know our paces and and try to move forward with uh you know what what best makes our membership um you know happy with the services that we have. You know, mem our members still want to talk to humans, so we would all we'll always have a human presence available. But for those folks that might just need a quick answer, uh those are the things that we're kind of focusing on uh ourselves and and also watching what you know the chases and the cities and the Bank of Americas are doing in being able to answer you know quick questions accurately and you know um I guess accurately, uh I'll say.
SPEAKER_01:Well, as regards the quality of the data I've been doing, working with computers since approximately 1982. And it's always been the case, garbage in, garbage out, and it's still the case today.
SPEAKER_02:You go.
SPEAKER_01:And it's just as much the case as it was in 1982.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, I that that that uh that doesn't change, right? Um, regardless if it was uh a report, an analysis now, you know, giving answers. Um we just have to be very cognizant of you know how we collect our data, how we um inspect our data, and how we curate our data. Um doing that well will then ensure that you know you'll have a good experience both from you know analysis and or self-service.
SPEAKER_01:Now, what kinds of AI-driven cyber attacks are you seeing, and how are you using AI to thwart these attacks? Or perhaps you're not, maybe you're just using smart humans.
SPEAKER_02:Uh so we have um um a suite of products uh that we use, and and we've also built some playbook automations. So um, you know, we get as as every other FI and probably every other company, there's you know, millions of attacks that happen or millions of incidents that happen each day. And so what we're doing is um I'll say the playbooks aren't completely AI yet, but there's machine learning to it, and we're building those out to say, you know, for all those different things that happen each day, ferret out the things that a human actually has to look at, right? So we're we're not we're not gone all the way to say the machine will always do everything, but as there are certain things that we know they're either false positives or they're things that uh we expect uh to happen. Uh we have some automation that we use to to either quarantine that or just uh you know close the incidents. But anything that um are anomalies, we don't let the machine just to take care of it. We then have a human take a look at and we make sure that you know it's not an attack that we should pay attention to. Um rarely so far, uh most of the attacks are still uh or the the incidents are still non-issues. But you know, from time to time there are a few things that uh you know we we get alerted and you know we have to get into a room and kind of think through um what this is and you know, do we have the right defenses in place uh um to thwart it? Or if not, you know, what do we need to do?
SPEAKER_01:You mentioned machine learning, and I've thought about that a lot in recent years where 20 years ago, uh I've had an American Express card for a long time. 20 years ago, if I'd gone to an Apple store in Nashville and attempted to buy$10,000 worth of computers, Amex would have declined it. Uh because I never before had set foot in Nashville, and never before I'd set foot in an Apple store. The machine learning 20 years ago would have been good enough to say, nope, there's a problem with discharge. And it maybe they would have had a representative call me to talk to me in the store at that moment of decline. I had that happen at least once, and I said, Yep, it's me. And I answered some question. They said, Okay, try it again. It's but all machine learning driven. And I don't think, I mean, to me, that was working really great. And that was not AI, but it was a predecessor to AI, if you will.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and and you know, we we have um our our third-party vendor does have that type of capability as well for our credit cards. So um, you know, everybody kind of puts a moniker of AI on things just because they you know have to.
SPEAKER_01:Well, hey man, it's cool. If I tell you this in machine learning, you're gonna say, I'll give you a dollar and a quarter for it. If I say, Oh, wow. No, no, no, no. This is open AI, AI driven. You'll say, Oh, I'll give you 10 bucks for it.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And and that's why, you know, that that's kind of my role and my team's role is as vendors come in to you know, tout their wares or their services or their technology. Um, you know, that's kind of what we kind of try to unpack to say, is it true AI? If it is, then we have different questions to ask. If it's machine learning, um, it's still fine. I mean, it's still a valuable uh technology if it works. Um, but I say most vendors have machine learning in place. Uh, AI is still coming. I think once once once the the next series of chips that come out, which will have inference, then I think I will say that there are several companies that will probably move ahead to say, now I have AI, because it it it has will have some reasoning behind it, right? So right now it's still you know, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. And you, you know, if you go on, even if you go on the Amex or any of the um, you know, um uh websites, there's still a yes-no questions, right? And then sometimes you you you ask a question to the AI ha ha uh and it gets confused, right? So you have to get to a human. I think the next generation that'll get better. And once that gets better, then I will say that if our data's right, then you'll have more of a you know machine human interaction with humans. I call it machine human, not human human.
SPEAKER_01:Your your credit unit is is how big is your IT staff?
SPEAKER_02:Well, we have 38 employees. Um that's made up of um uh IT security, uh infrastructure, um, desktop and help desk, and um the uh business application and data team.
SPEAKER_01:Now, how much of what you do there is homebrewed and how much comes from vendors?
SPEAKER_02:Um the majority comes from vendors. Uh we've we've we we don't have you know the the the capability of just growing our RIT shop um you know to a large degree of just programmers. So we uh leverage our our vendors, vendor partners, and really work with them um, you know, to build out if there's new capabilities required, then we'll work with them to build out the requirements. Now we do have uh you know, we do do some light uh development work um on our core system. We do most of our heavy development work is around the data um platform and building out reports, but um we we tend to rely on our vendor partners to you know provide us the technology that we need and um you know work with them to build out anything that might be anomalous to what we need.
SPEAKER_01:Are you seeing, you know, to go back to what I was talking about, Publio, are you seeing better fake people uh seeking to open accounts or whatever at your institution?
SPEAKER_02:Well, um so there are fraud is still you know problematic for all of us, right? Um so we have we're we put in some various measures. So one measure that we have in our phone system is uh we are asking our members to digitally voice print themselves. And so um when a member calls in, uh we'll ask if we can get permission to record the call uh for their voice. And uh if they opt in, um it takes a few seconds of talking for us to get a voice print for them. And um, once that happens, the next time they call in, um that's one of the mechanisms we may use for um authentication. There we also have some other questions we'll ask around authentication to make sure the member is the member. And uh if the all those things pass, then you know we'll we'll work with them. If it doesn't pass, then you know we'll tell them that you know an answer or um something is wrong, and uh you know we'll ask them to go to a branch uh to you know physically uh do the transaction. Uh we also have some other things in place. I don't want to give too much away, but we have some other things within our our tech stack um that uh help limit uh how transactions uh work. Now that puts some friction into the environment. Um, you know, I know people want it to be frictionless and easy, but unfortunately, the more frictionless and easy you make it, uh, the more the frauds just kind of can glom onto that and and and exploit the members. So we always try to be very balanced and make sure that um you know we do a really good job in protecting our members first, but also try to give them the best experience possible uh without you know causing you know issues with fraud. Do you have a fraud department here that that's very diligent in looking at um you know how fraud works and works with the IT team and and the business to help um you know mitigate what we can. But you know, it it's it's it's a tough world out there. A lot of bad guys out there, you know, looking for money and you know trying to find ways to get it out of our members' hands.
SPEAKER_01:Well, as I've told people for some years, and you'll understand what I'm saying, you have professional staff, but the criminal organizations have professional staff, and they're really pretty good, pretty good professionals. They just have to be morally corrupt and bent, but they're good. It's uh so you can't, it's not it's no longer the mentally ill 16-year-old in his parents' basements. I mean, that might happen from time to time, but that's not the real threat now.
SPEAKER_02:Oh well, 100%. I mean, um we we we belong to a number of security groups um that that you know talk through that and and give us insight as to you know the the bad actors that are out there and and how their vectors are and what what are they trying to do. And so what we try to do is is understand those vectors and um and really you know look at either our technology and our business process or our human to help protect that, right? Because you know, I as I tell most of anybody that ever asks me about, you know, you're in IT, you're over security, um, you know, are you safe? I'm like, we're as safe as we can be with the investments that we make, but technology isn't the answer. Technology is one of the layers of security that we use, business process another, but the still the weakest link is the human. And so if we can continue to educate and train our employees and also our members to look at you know things that potentially could be damaging to either the credit union or themselves and understand what's happening, that is the biggest defense that we can have. All the technology in the world still can't you know replace a human making a bad decision.
SPEAKER_01:And every day I get two or three emails asking me to approve an invoice, which I don't look at because I've never heard of the company. And a bunch of that stuff is screened out before I even see it by the email system. But nonetheless, two or three come through every day. I mean, they they're clearly uh seeking to get me before I've had my first cup of coffee, and I say, Oh heavens, I have to have, yeah, okay. Oh,$14,000 in an Apple store. No, that's not me. I mean, but but so far I haven't fallen for that yet. But I view that partly just as luck on my part.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, I mean what we try to do here is so that we do several things. We we do a monthly uh uh fishing test. Um and depending on who the employee is, we'll have a different set of questions for them. Um and every employee has to go through it each month. Um, and if they succeed, if they're if they've if they pass, then you know they get congratulations. If they fail, uh then there's some mandatory training that's that's required for them. Uh, and it's funny, the more training we've done, the more people are being a little bit more vigilant about just emails in general, saying, yeah, we're getting more and more alerts. We have a a button on our on our email that says, is this a fish? You know, click this button and it goes to security. We're getting more and more people clicking that now, saying, I'm not quite sure if this is a legitimate email or not. And so that that makes me feel good. Um, out of our 65% of the people report phishing now in our exercise, which is fantastic. Um, so it makes you know, people think about you know, what should the the process is report if you think there is a problem, some happy that more and more people each month are reporting uh the exercise. Um and you know, really the other thing that we do is if you, you know, I always tell people if you get an email that you're not expecting or you know has some urgency to it, you know, stop and think about this first. Don't don't go off and just you know say it's because it's comes from the CEO, you've got to make you gotta uh react right away. Think about that. And if you really have a question, go call the person. Did you send this email? Um taking you know a few extra minutes of making a decision versus just quickly, you know, handling the transaction will save you know sometimes the company a lot of money andor our members a lot of money.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I get an email at least once a week from my credit union telling me they're closing uh such and such account of mine because I'm I'm a bad person or words to that effect. And uh before I freak out uh and call the number in the email, I go to the my credit union website, click on it, my account looks just Jim Dandy, as far as I can tell. And that takes me, I don't know, 30 seconds to check that out.
SPEAKER_02:And uh the the funny thing is that we will never send you an email saying we're closing your account, we'll never send you a text saying we're closing your account. It will usually be a formal letter if that ever were to occur. Uh or during the course of transactions, we will tell you something. So I just you know we'll always remind members uh or customers, you know, think before you act. What bad guys try to do is you know make you make it so urgent or so outlandish that you might not be thinking clearly, and you're going to try to you you'll you'll you'll fall for the trick. And you know, I always say stay calm, like you just said, if you're really question it, never never take any of the information that comes from an email or a a text. Always go to the official website or you know, look up the official phone number or go to your branch and talk to the people. And um, you know, sometimes I always say bring the email with you because it sometimes is very helpful to understand, you know, what are people doing so that we can do either fraud, the fraud team can look at at the email and see what we can do from with law enforcement, or we from IT can take a look at it and see if we can shut things down. We have other tools that that we've invested in uh that scan um the the internet for impersonations, and um what we get you know at least a few times a month, uh someone trying to impersonate our credit union. And uh the good news is that um the system alerts us to that, and um we have a service that can shut that down very quickly so that we can again help our members not get you know spearfished or you know do smishing or all the other different ishings that are out there that uh uh the bad guys are trying to do.
SPEAKER_01:Now I've heard this from people in similar positions to yours in the past, but I haven't asked the question in a few years. Do you get a lot of um let's call it possibly really fishy and and wrong LinkedIn uh link requests? Yeah, before we before this call, I looked you up on LinkedIn and it just occurred to me, you're there. Anybody can look you up and do and I've and as I say, people in similar positions to yours in past years told me they got they were like prime targets for a lot of criminals out there.
SPEAKER_02:So again, we have a tool that protects our executives. So um as as um LinkedIn is one of the places the tool looks and um helps identify some some if there's a bad actor out there. Um mostly what I get, in my opinion, are these these LinkedIn things about um, hey, you're such a smart person, we want to contract you for some, you know, service, and we'll pay you for it. Um I've never felt fallen for that because I always think that that's a scam in some in some way. Um so so we have some tools in place and we try to educate folks, but we haven't seen too many um you know impersonations of of our executives and or messages that are coming in from LinkedIn that um that try to you know trick us into things, other than you know, like I said, these uh these interesting uh emails. I'll pay you$500 for you know an hour of your time. And I'm like, yeah, I don't uh I I'm not falling for that. I that that's too good to be true.
SPEAKER_01:Now go back to voice prints. Yeah, I've done approximately 500 podcasts. Uh anybody can get my voice and and do what they want with it, it's pretty accessible. So if if an institution has a voice print for me, what good is that?
SPEAKER_02:The the tool that we so I will say that it is a it is a game of cat and mouse. Okay, so bad guys are continuing to try to synthesize the voice um to become more human like. Uh, our vendor that we're using are trying to stay ahead of that. So um I'm never gonna say it's never going to happen, but um, our vendor has said that today capturing a voice print um you know, off of a computer or some news feed. There is still some ways our vendor can see see that that is still a synthetic voice versus an actual voice. But you know, bad guys are getting better at this. And so we're just staying very close with our vendor to make sure that they're staying ahead of the bad guys and implementing um you know so we can implement you know upgrades to the tool so that we can continue to you know um really understand if this is you talking or if it's uh you know some in person you're talking.
SPEAKER_01:Do you have a fully digital account opening a new member opening account?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah so we have uh we have a we have our uh our online uh account opening uh but uh again it's not fully digital it there's still humans that then inspect the uh the account and uh makes decisions off of it uh so you know it we've made it easier for people to apply but there's still a human you know taking a look at the application and making sure that you know everything um is you know what it is and and ensures that the human is the human and and it's not a bot or something else that you know potentially could open account and then you know cause us problems.
SPEAKER_01:So a prospective member can actually complete the member enrollment process entirely online.
SPEAKER_02:Yes either on the website or uh in our digital um digital platform.
SPEAKER_01:Cool because a lot of a lot of credit unions are holding back they well you could just come in to the nearest branch and we'll just finalize this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah I mean we we still have that option as well but you know obviously we're we're trying to uh you know be modern uh but again we're not trying to to just say all decisions are made by a computer it's just making sure that you know some of the mundane things are are being able to be done in a digital format so that when we do talk to the member or uh the potential member or make our decisions that um we don't have to you know spend a lot of time collecting information that you know could be done you know in the members due time versus you know elongating a call or elongating a uh you know an in-branch visit because an in-branch visit you uh folks can turn uh we'll can pull up the uh the application there as well and make sure you know everything checks out before we we we allow that to be a member or have have the person be uh join the membership. When did you start at this credit union uh I started three years ago so I'm uh I'm relatively new to the credit union space um I actually come from the casino hospitalian retail environment so um it's a fascinating job I I wish I would have known about credit unions years ago um I just love the mission uh and I love you know just how the credit union movement works everybody shares uh information with each other versus being a competitive and it's just uh I don't know it's just a breath of fresh air for me so I really really enjoy working in this environment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah as I've told people and many people find it almost impossible to believe but if you're having a problem and you're talking with a peer of yours who has the same position as you but say a credit union in Colorado or California there's a 50% chance that person will say I have the solution and I will give it to you I'll sell it to you I will give it to you and it's unimaginable that JP Morgan Chase would say that to Bank of America at a conference.
SPEAKER_02:Unimaginable just ain't gonna happen more more folks should understand the credit credit union movement. I I think if people really understood you know the the power of of the collective versus the power of the individual I think people would really you know enjoy um what credit unions provide in the United States um so I'm I'm I I didn't know much about it when when I started but uh uh I am hook line sinker I'm I'm I'm I've fallen in love with with the the movement and I tell everybody I can to say yeah you might might like Chase you might like City you might like some of these other bigger banks but uh we can do just as much as they do and um I think we're friendlier and uh uh and provide you better service than some of the bigger guys can.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah unless you're like a Nashville superstar a credit union can do handle all your banking needs pretty much whoever you are I mean there's a handful of really rich people who might need really rich people personal banking services.
SPEAKER_02:But I don't know I don't know any of those people actually so it's uh I don't know them either but uh you know I I think that there there is you know there's plenty of room for every you know type of FI to be out there but I would just say if um you know you're looking for something more community based something that is not for profit we're not out here trying to make a profit we're we are trying to you know every dollar we make we try to bring give that back to the membership to say what can we do better you know what new services do we do we can we provide what more um you know experience can we provide or what new product can we provide that makes your life better you know that's that's what credit unions do so you know some people still like the big banks okay good but um like you said I think we can do um almost every service um just as good if not better than you know some of the big boys now you can answer a question that I don't talk to too many people who could answer it because they don't have recent meaningful experience outside of the credit union world I often hear from fintech guys God credit unions I like I they oh they always love credit unions but they say they are really slow to make a decision are they telling the truth from where you sit now these guys like credit unions they just they you know gotta come out and say had a great meeting and I say well they'll probably make a decision in about a yeah and he's like it can't be that long oh probably it will be so well i i'll just say it depends on the service right i i've seen um some services or or product um that was implemented fairly quickly right uh it's also you know the maturity of each institution right some people may really want the product but it may take some time for them to you know be able to implement it um so for our credit union we've done uh a few things one is um we have a governance process uh in place so as new ideas come in um they get governed and quickly either said yes move forward into and I won't bore you but we call it the six D's from from discovery to define to design to develop to deploy and disengage and so what we've implemented here is to say monthly we meet uh anybody can come to the meeting they can have an idea we govern the idea we vote on the idea if it's a good idea we move forward if it's not a good idea or if it's something that's not right for us today we'll we'll we'll we'll uh we'll deny it um so that hopefully gives vendors a more you know a quicker turnaround of like well maybe maybe maybe it's like yes or no and we do take more time in design now um something that um you know I've kind of brought to the credit union to say from an idea to deployment doesn't work um we need to understand what our requirements are what is our you know what are we what is the scope what are we trying to accomplish and work with the vendors to make sure that the product meets what the needs are and so that sometimes takes more time it sometimes takes more um effort for the vendor to do that additional work but once that is in place we make a fairly quick decision then and then we go to deployment and you know as I say the hard the work is the work if it's if it's a thousand hours project it's a thousand hour project what you want to do is put the right hours in the right places so it doesn't become a 2,000 hour project because you're doing a lot of rework. So we're trying to be more disciplined around that and you know governing governing our work. And then we'll continue to try to streamline you know the purchasing process and all that that's another place sometimes it it gets bogged down where you know contracts take longer. So as we go through these six D's the contracts kind of begin to start being reviewed and and approved so that when the project is approved to you know be developed and deployed uh we don't have a lot of hangups and time wasting going on that hey we still need to do the contract.
SPEAKER_01:Another thing that's changed I've been writing about credit unions and tech for I don't know going on 20 years and go way back and tech vendors had very little middleware.
SPEAKER_02:So they're talking to a credit union and they say well it's going to take us I don't know three months six months build a kit so we can patch in our software into your core system most of them now have pretty built-out uh middleware kits and unless you have a really eccentric core they can that's not a problem anymore so that's sped up the process a great deal yeah I agree I mean uh good news is you know most of the core providers um you know are partnering with other integrated systems um we've done a big upgrade to you know we we're on a we're on Jack Henry so we had to do an upgrade and the connectivity there uh so work with all our vendors and this the other thing that we do as well is as we do our discovery you know definition design uh we do ferret out all of that uh those questions to ensure that when a vendor does come in that they have modern connectivity capabilities if they don't IT usually recommends against the vendor because that's overhead technical debt that we're trying to move away from so that we can be efficient effective and cost effective for the business and then we're not making bad decisions for vendors that might might not be you know modernizing the way we want to modernize I would just say that you know technology is moving so fast um you know we are we work really hard with our vendors um to educate ourselves um and have vendors educate us as to what you know the the new frontier looks like so you know it's it's a fun ride though I will tell you if um you know so I always thought that the the 90s were were a really cool time 2000 cool time to be in IT uh but um I think the 20s and the 30s will be even more uh even cooler because uh of all the things that are coming down the pike um hopefully I'll be good all for good uh I know there'd be some things for bad as well that could happen to us but um I'm an optimist so I I look at all this technology to say it's gonna make us better it's gonna make the credit union better it's gonna make the member experience uh fantastic before we go think hard about how you can help support this podcast so we can do more interviews with more thoughtful leaders in the credit union world what we're trying to figure out here in these podcasts is what's next for credit unions.
SPEAKER_01:What can they do to really, really really make a difference in the financial scene? Can't all be megabanks can it? It's my hope it won't all be megabanks it'll always be a place for credit unions. That's what we're discussing here. So figure out how you can help get in touch with me this is rjmegarvey at gmail.com Robert McGarvey again that's rjmegarvey at gmail.com get in touch we'll figure out a way that you can help we need your support we want your support we thank you for your support the CU2.0 podcast