The credit union movement is at a crossroads, facing the dual challenge of staying true to its mission while adapting to an ever-changing financial landscape. In the most recent episode of “CU On the Show,” Doug English engaged with two dynamic leaders, Jenny Vipperman and Jennifer Kouchis to explore how bold thinking and innovative strategies are shaping the future of credit unions. This episode sheds light on the critical role of stewardship, the power of innovation in serving underserved communities, and the importance of redefining revenue models to ensure long-term sustainability. 

  1. The Power of Long-Term Stewardship

Jenny Vipperman, President & CEO of ORNL Federal Credit Union, emphasizes the importance of viewing leadership as stewardship rather than just a role. She believes that the ultimate goal is to ensure that credit unions remain relevant and effective for decades to come. This long-term perspective requires making decisions that may not yield immediate profits but are crucial for sustaining the movement over the long haul. Vipperman underscores the need for bold, calculated risks to ensure that credit unions continue to serve their communities effectively in the future. 

  1. Embracing Innovation to Serve Underserved Communities 

Jennifer Kouchis, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, highlights the importance of innovation in reaching underserved communities. Kouchis discusses the development of affordable lending programs, such as partnerships with Habitat for Humanity and support for military members, to expand generational wealth and support underserved populations. 

  1. Redefining Revenue Streams for Sustainable Growth

One of the most significant challenges for credit unions is balancing the need for revenue with their mission to serve members. Jenny Vipperman discusses her credit union’s strategic shift away from relying heavily on fees like NSF fees, which do not provide value to members. Instead, her team is focusing on generating revenue through value-added services that members choose because they genuinely benefit from them. This approach not only aligns with the credit union’s mission but also ensures that the organization’s revenue model is sustainable and member-focused. 

Stream the Episode to Learn More

For a deeper dive into how Jenny Vipperman and Jennifer Kouchis are transforming the credit union industry, listen to the full episode. Here’s what you’ll gain: 

  • Innovative Lending Practices: Discover how using AI in loan decisioning can increase inclusivity without increasing risk.
 
  • Affordable Lending Programs: Learn about specific programs designed to support underserved communities.
 
  • Revenue Model Overhaul: Understand how shifting away from fee-based revenue can lead to sustainable growth and better member service.
 

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from industry leaders who are at the forefront of change in the credit union movement. Listen to the full episode now and be inspired to implement bold ideas that can transform your credit union and better serve your members for years to come. 

 

Jenny Vipperman, Jennifer Kouchis and ORNL Federal Credit Union are not affiliated with or endorsed by ACT Advisors, LLC. 

 

 

Audio Transcription 

Doug English  00:02  

Jenny and Jennifer, welcome to CU On the Show. I’m delighted to have you join us today, and I want to tell my listeners how this podcast came about. I was at GAC, and I was walking around to smart folks that I knew in the room that were bold thinkers, and I asked them who had the boldest ideas in the credit union movement and could help me to capture those ideas, to protect and grow the movement, numerous people told me Jenny Vipperman is someone you need to interview on CU On the Show. So that’s how this podcast came about, and to strengthen the podcast, she said one Jenny is not enough. We also need a Jennifer, and we also have Jennifer joining us today. So I’m delighted that you’re here, and please tell us a little bit about how you guys started working with credit unions and what you’re doing today.  

Jenny Vipperman  01:17  

Thanks so much Doug for having us on. We’re both so happy to be here. I think I’ll kick this off, and then I’ll turn it over to Jennifer. I actually started back in Virginia, in the DC metro area, right out of college. I went and worked for Enterprise, which I enjoyed a lot. After a few years, I was there selling cars, and one day I got a call that we had a VIP customer coming in, and this person was the chairman of the board of a local credit union. And I remember to this day, I was helping him and his wife buy a car. It was Pontiac five, back when they made Pontiac. So I’m dating myself. And during the process, I really got to know him, and found out that his job was not paid. So for almost 50 years. And actually, when he retired, it was over 50 years, he served the credit union movement and didn’t receive any income for it, and I really wanted to understand why. And he told me a story and told me about the difference that the credit union makes in people’s lives. And I fell in love. So I immediately went online. I applied for a job. I got the card in the mail that said, thanks, but no thanks for this role. But I picked that phone right back up and said, I think there’s something here, and they just happen to be hiring for an indirect lending program, looking for someone that had car sales experience. And so it was a perfect fit. I was there for over seven years. It was the beginning of my career with Apple Federal Credit Union, a really terrific place, and it really changed the trajectory of my life, I’ve always been so grateful for what the credit union movement has done for me and for my family, and have been so focused for the rest of my career on giving back to that movement.  

Doug English  02:50  

Awesome. Jennifer?  

Jennifer Kouchis  02:53  

Absolutely, and thank you so much for having us and for me, I started my career in the mortgage industry. I worked for a broker at first, and I thought, what more of an admirable job than to help somebody to purchase a home. And so, I worked there for a little while, and I just felt like there was more we could offer and a better connection that we could have than just really transactional. I also grew up in the DC metro area. I did not know Jenny, but we must have crossed paths at one point or another. So I ended up applying for a local credit union because I saw their ads and I saw what they were doing, and I thought, I want to be part of that type of culture where you’re really kind of hand holding and walking our members through and really having a better experience doing more than just transactional and so I applied for my local credit union, and I started working there, and I immediately bought in. It was just a great experience. The culture was more than just coming in to do a job. You really just wanted to be there. It was the people helping people mentality. I just couldn’t get enough of it. That was with my time with Navy Federal Credit Union, and I felt like that’s where I started my roots, there in the credit union industry. And I was there for about seven years as well, and that’s how I kind of kicked off my journey with credit unions.  

Doug English  04:08  

Wonderful. Well, thank you. Jenny, when I reached out to you and said bold ideas for the credit union movement, what came to mind? What ideas did you immediately have, or did you develop that we can talk about today.  

Jenny Vipperman  04:21  

I think I’ll start with how we look at the movement itself. So, I think of stewardship. This movement has been around longer than pretty much anybody I know it certainly has been working in this industry. My credit union has been here for 76 years, and I think of myself not as the leader of the organization or the current CEO of the organization. My job is to make sure that it’s here for another 76 years and ongoing. And what that requires is looking at it from a very, very long term business perspective. And that’s difficult. It’s difficult to say, what do we need not to be  profitable, successful, growing tomorrow? But what do we need to be relevant 20, 30, 50 years from now? And that requires bold ideas. That means that we have to take calculated, well researched risks and make sure that when we hand over that baton, that we have something to actually hand over. And I’ll go back to the very, very beginning. You asked what the beginning of my credit union journey was. When I talked to members at my first credit union, they all had the same story, and that story was, I became a credit union member because my credit union helped me when no one else would. That’s a story that those of us who have been in this industry for decades have heard over and over and over again. And I don’t think that our members of today can say the same thing. I don’t think as a movement, I think we have the heart. I think we do the work. I think we care tremendously. I think we do so much good, and I don’t think that we are taking big risks on people like we did before. So we think about, how can we grow? How can we grow past 3% How can we go past 5% a year? We’re all fighting for the same members. Nothing makes me crazier than somebody saying, hey, what’s the member you want? What’s a good member? And my answer is, all our membership are good members, we’re not looking for the necessarily a PLUS credit member. We’re not looking necessarily for the member who has the highest income or has never made a mistake. We should be looking at, how do we bring every single person to have membership in our organization? And it’s hard. It’s very, very easy to bring in deposits for people who never bounced a check, and it’s really easy to make loans to people who have never paid one late. It’s hard to look out at our potential membership and say, where is there a need? And how do we fill that need, and how do we mitigate the risk at the end of it? Because that is a lot more work, and I think that’s the biggest, boldest thing we could do is we were able to say yes to every single person who came to us and asked us for an account and asked us for a loan we would not have a liquidity problem, we would not have a member growth problem. We would not have any of these issues. And I think that’s what we’ve got to do to be able to become the credit unions of the future, and hand that baton over when we all retire one day what we’ve worked so hard for, and hand over the movement that the people who came before us intended it to be.  

Jennifer Kouchis  07:32  

And for me, I couldn’t agree more with that, what I love about credit unions and being bold is really uniting to serve a greater purpose and being able to uplift our communities. I think that we have to continue to challenge the status quo. We have to be out there and innovating and competing, but really we have to seek to serve. We can’t wait for members to come to us. We have to go out there and serve those who need us. And I think it’s about education as well. When my dad was younger, he wasn’t afforded the opportunity to go to college, so wouldn’t it have been great if he knew about a local credit union that might be able to help support him and help him through some of that. But I think sometimes we assume that our communities understand and know about credit unions and what we have to offer, because we’ve been doing this for so long, but it’s not. We have to seek to serve. We have to go out there and find out what they need, how they need support, and we have to be innovative. One of the things that I love most about the leadership that I’ve been fortunate to work with, especially Jenny and the time that I’ve been with her, is that we don’t just talk it, but we do it even in times of hardship, even in times of economic uncertainty. We’re out there doing it, creating innovative products, making sure that we’re serving, taking the risks and making sure that we’re out there doing what we exist to do, which is people helping people. I love that about leadership that I’ve been fortunate to work beside.   

Doug English  08:54  

So can we get into some examples of how you might be doing that, or see others doing that, let’s get into some specifics that your peers can potentially grow from.   

Jenny Vipperman  09:06  

Absolutely, I’m going to start with one, and then I’d like Jennifer to talk about a couple of the things we’ve done together, because Jennifer and I’ve worked together at two different organizations, so we’ve had the opportunity to build and see things last for a long time and then come into another organization and start building again in a different community. And I think that it’s really important to see that all of these communities are different, and to stop and really pay attention to the differences. When I was coming up, I remember very, very clearly having no lending background at all, going through one of the old Rex Johnson style lending educations. And probably three months in, I was on credit committee, and I was making the biggest decisions without really having a lot of experience. And I remember at the time thinking, there’s going to be a better way to use science and data to do this. There wasn’t at the time, but there is now. So fast forward, when I was looking for technology to take the art out of the science of lending, so I partnered with zest AI to find a data driven way to decision loans, because there’s so much opinion and so much bias in how we did that, and I realized, like I said before, that, we were not saying yes to quite as many members as we could possibly say yes to. It was the first time that this was done in the industry, and really trying to push forward an idea that we couldn’t take on more risk because we’re a credit union, and we want to be really conservative, and we’ve got to protect the assets of our members, but using data and trusting data and understanding that this data is about to tell us that everything we thought for decades about how we’re making loans wasn’t quite as correct as we thought it was. The result of that was being able to help more members than we ever had before. And what was very important to me, I’ll tell you a little bit about my background, Doug is growing up, I didn’t have access to this kind of information. I didn’t know anything about credit. My dad if he could just pay all the bills, that was a good month. And so realizing that there are really, really good people out there who maybe weren’t taught about credit and maybe didn’t have all of those opportunities going through. So being able to help more people, and we’re bringing in revenue. We’re not doing this out of charity, but we are doing this to help other people. Was so, so important to me, and to take that character out, we have been taught for so long the 4cs and characters right up at the top, and here we are trying to judge someone’s character from a piece of paper, that felt really wrong. And it was so important to give back dignity to people, even if we were able to approve somebody, what kind of hoops did we make them jump through, and how long did they have to wait? And how long were they sitting there staring at somebody in a branch in the face, hoping they could get approved? Or did they have to come back and prove something to them? We were giving dignity back to them, and that was a really big deal. We had to do a lot of advocacy with our regulators, because they didn’t understand it, and they were a little afraid of it. We had to really justify this to our board, to the management team, to our employees. And it was hard, it was hard and it was a big risk, but the reward was that we were able to approve more people than ever before without increasing risk. We were able to help people who were traditionally left out, protected classes that are traditionally left out into the lending spectrum, and really change people’s lives. That’s the kind of thinking, and that’s just in decisioning. That’s not even the new products and services that we put out there. And the most important part to me was not just to do it for our members. The most important part was to do what so many of my friends in this credit union business have done for me in the past, which is share every single thing we found, every mistake we made, every learning so that they could do it too, so their members could have the same experience, because that’s so important. And Jennifer has a great experience creating some really impressive products to serve underserved communities as well.  

Doug English  13:13  

Well, that’s a great tee up, but I got to get in the middle just a second. Really love what you said, but I just want to see if we can get any data points. Zest AI is what you added. And you added that to use data to drive loan decisioning, not just a piece of paper. When was that?  

Jenny Vipperman  13:30  

I started on that journey with them back in 2019, we made our first loans in 2020 and at this point, I think they have well over 150 credit unions on over 400 models. So this is throughout the country, at very, very small credit unions and at one of the biggest credit unions in the country. So in everything in between, which was the point, and when we went back and looked at it over the first couple of years, which is important, because we went through a global pandemic, we went through a big economic shift, and what we saw was that we were able to hold that risk constant, that we were able to increase our approvals by over 30% to everyone, and in particular, to protected classes it was even higher than that. We were able to auto approve more than ever before. So getting that instant decision and the dignity that went around that went around it. And the most incredible part is when we went back to see where is the delinquency in this portfolio, it was the things that came out that a human decisioned, that a human made an exception on. So it really did prove that the data, using hundreds of data points, using machine learning, using all of this back information, was powerful and fair and efficient, and was really a win for everybody.   

Doug English  14:55  

Awesome. You’ve had several years in it now, so you’ve seen that data persist. I assume or you wouldn’t keep doing it. I’m hoping that you’re going to tell us about other areas where you used that, but maybe over to Jennifer to hear about the things that she developed.  

Jennifer Kouchis  15:09  

Definitely, for me, some of the highlights are just some of the affordable lending programs that have been created so that we could help support habitat organizations like Habitat for Humanity and partnering there to offer 100% mortgages there for those going through that home buying process, they’ve obviously served lots of hours and helping build those homes and having that financial wellness experience that they get through that process. So that was something that we’ve been able to do together developing programs that help support military was really something to not compete with VA, but to compliment for those that maybe didn’t meet every single guideline in black and white, that we were able to still serve those who served. So that was a great program, and that was one that also we had a component that we made a donation on every single one of our members that closed on a loan that we gave that to support our military, which was also a great initiative that we did and really just helped more people. We really want to focus on loan down payment options and affordable options, so that we could really expand generational wealth. Those are things that we really had to focus on and making sure that not only did we help get them into the products, but that we understand when we talk about sustainability and generational wealth. We don’t think about having them stay in the home, right? If we get them in the home and they can’t sustain it, it doesn’t matter, right? They’re not going to build the generational wealth. So we really wanted to make sure that we provided education, wellness, the products, and really were able to serve them all the way through, to also providing support on the back in through the servicing line. Those are a couple of different products that we’ve created. We’ve partnered with a lot of community partners again, and some of the POW MIA Memorial Museum partnership there, and doing donations and things like that. So it’s been a great journey in partnering through them.  

Doug English  16:55  

Yeah, you remind me, I did an interview a couple years ago with the charitable arm of state employees, credit union. And what really struck me about that interview was that when they give folks money from their endowment, they also give them education so that the money is used in a way that perpetuates. And it’s kind of akin to what you just mentioned. Not only did they bring their funds, they brought their network of people that they had already vetted that were CPAs and attorneys and financial advisors to help them to make better use of those funds to lever that money up. Tell me some other uses that to come to mind with these bold ideas for your credit union peers.   

Jenny Vipperman  17:42  

We talked a little bit about technology and a little bit about product, so I want to talk about the overall strategy of how we generate revenue, and does it make sense for a not for profit organization? So as a not for profit organization, as credit unions, a tremendous amount of our income comes from fees, just like every financial institution. This is something that is, I think, at the top of mind for a lot of people, but the reality is a tremendous amount of that comes from overdraft protection and NSF fees. There was a time many, many years ago that when you had an NSF there was physical work that had to be done to return that item. That’s not the case anymore, an NSF is returned, and there’s virtually no risk and virtually no work on the credit unions part. The problem is we are so reliant on that income, it is a tremendous amount of our overall income, depending on the organization, anywhere between 20 and 60% of that fee income is coming from NSF expenses. So when we look at what are we as an organization, if we were building ourselves from the ground up, would our strategy be for a gigantic amount of our income to come from this particular fee being for something that costs us nothing, that doesn’t provide any benefit whatsoever to our members? And I think every single one of us would say, No, we would not build our organization on that. Yet we are afraid of walking away from it, and very few organizations have. So one of the things that we’re doing at or now is focusing on a you can’t rip off a band aid overnight. We’re still running a business, and we still have to pay to keep the lights on, but a strategy to remove our reliance on those sorts of fees and migrate our income to value adds for our members that they choose for themselves, and do something for them, and that’s what we’ve started to do. So a couple of things we’ve done already this year is we’ve reduced those overdraft protection and NSF fees. Now overdraft protection does provide a value to a member, it’s a product, and we’ve reduced that from $35 to $25 and we’ve reduced our NSF to $15 and we’re working on how to continue reducing that down. We would love to be in a position where the NSF was zero, and the overdraft was just enough to pay for the expense and the risk that goes along with that, we’ve also started just taking away fees. So if you get the top of the line account with us, the top of the line checking account that comes with all the bells and whistles, including a 4% interest rate on it, you now pay nothing for that. You don’t have to use a debit card, you don’t have to have a direct deposit. You don’t have to jump through all these hoops. So going through ways to say your membership should be free with us, and everything that we generate revenue from should be something that you value. Brings value to your life. And that’s really where we’re moving, and that’s something that’s going to be really hard. The other side to it is whether you do it or not, it’s coming. The regulators are coming for this income, so being ahead of it gives us the opportunity to thoughtfully and intentionally, over time, replace that income, as opposed to having it done overnight. That is a completely different shift in the way we think about how we’re generating revenue and running our organizations, that it does take a lot of courage to walk away from millions of dollars, frankly, in income, but it’s coming off the backs of the people who need us the most.   

Doug English  21:14  

I’m developing some questions going kick it over to Jennifer, in case you have something to add to that.  

Jennifer Kouchis  21:19  

Some other things that we’re looking at is just making sure that we have a full financial wellness program that really meets our members where they are. We really want to make sure that we have something to support every stage of their life, all the way from early savers and young children that are just getting and learning about finances. We have a great employee, Taylor, who is out in schools and educating lots of youth, and he’s really beating the streets on his own. We want to give him support and make sure that we’re serving from a broader spectrum, and we want to be able to continue to serve across Tennessee. And so what we’re doing there is making sure that we’re building out a program that supports youth again, and then we’re also getting a platform where we can also have something that is an app-like tool, that they can use to see how they can improve their financing, so if they’re having challenges or there’s opportunities, that tool can help them there. And then also looking at pre-retirement, I think that that is a space that a lot of people don’t talk about, is that pre-retirement and understanding Medicare and being able to answer some of those questions. So we really want to make sure that we have something for all of our members, and make sure that there’s not one generation that’s overlooked over another, so that we really can serve all of our members.   

Jenny Vipperman  22:33  

And if I can add to that, I think there are two ways that we’ve done this as an industry in the past. One is we give them a phone number. Here’s our provider call here, and they’ll help you, or we try to be the expert in everything. Let me help you fix your financial situation. And both of those are a little bit scary, right? You turn somebody over completely, and it’s not you anymore. It’s not the credit union anymore. And when we have employees, no matter how intelligent or how knowledgeable or educated they are. They can’t understand every single situation. So this is a marriage between utilizing smart technology and there are platforms that we have signed with for the retirement side, for the education side, for the homeownership side, everywhere along the way. What ties it all together is ORNL we are the ones that are providing it. It is under our name, and you are receiving this education, and we’re taking you along that lifelong journey to wellness, as opposed to just kind of giving you someone else’s phone number.  

Jennifer Kouchis  23:32  

Definitely, and I think another side that we really want to make sure that we’re putting out there to provide support is getting to a point that when we have members that maybe don’t qualify right now, that we’re able to say, not right now, but this is how we’re going to get you there. And so we hope that as our program expands, that we can provide tools and resources to put them in more of a funnel, so that they can come back through the funnel. And I think that a lot of times, members are overlooked. They receive an adverse action or decision on something, and they’re given limited information, and they go on their way. We want to make sure that we have members for life and that we build that loyalty, and we’re really there when they need us most and when they need us most, is figuring out, how do we improve our situation? How do we better our situation so that we can achieve the goals that we have and the dreams that we have as a family? So we want to make sure that we’re part of that with our members.  

Doug English  24:22  

Can we talk about some of the specific tools? I’d like some names for our listeners to use as the shortlist. So for both of the things that both of you just mentioned, can we get specific names, like the one you already mentioned, Zest AI, what else? Who are the partners that are helping you with the other things?  

Jenny Vipperman  24:38  

Silver is phenomenal. And actually, the founder of Silver presented a couple of years ago at venture tech and won venture tech silver is the one that helps you with that pre-retirement, and it is just a really, really smart technology. The founder has a phenomenal story where she’s an extraordinarily well educated person who works in finance. And when it was her mother’s time to retire, she realized she didn’t know the answers. And the people creating the technology, the people working in financial services, have not retired yet. They’re still working in the organizations, and so didn’t have the expertise. So she created just a really smart, intuitive technology that helps you not only know what you need to plan for, but the best place for you to live, the best age for you to retire, and these things are based on your gender, whether you’re married, how old you are, what your health conditions are, and all of those needs. It is so personalized, but using that technology to make sure it reaches everybody.  

Jennifer Kouchis  25:33  

And some of the other programs that we’re looking to do, those are things that we’re kind of building in house that we’re able to kind of go through our process to make sure that we’re serving our members with some of the tools that we have and partners that we have, kind of putting something together so that we can walk them through the different stages, and if they’re not able to qualify that we’re bringing them back into the fold and providing the resources with those different tools to bring them back through the funnel.  

Doug English  25:58  

Are you going to spread your mission into the CUSO structure and partner that with other credit unions to be able to access those bills.   

Jenny Vipperman  26:07  

What a great idea, Doug. And we do have a CUSO so everyone knows it’s called 7 LLC, underneath our CUSO, we do have mortgage CUSO, a servicing CUSO title, and we’re part owner of insurance. These are things that are important to us to get absolutely right before we take it on the road, to offer it to other credit unions. But we want to make sure that our sister credit unions, if they’re not able to build this themselves, have access through us. So that’ll go on the list, added to the CUSO.  

Doug English  26:32  

Add it to the list. All right. Well, I want to dig a little bit more into the reduction of fees, a very sensitive, difficult topic. I’m hoping that some of the inverse also occurred, that when you looked into some of the pricing of, we generate revenue when we deliver value, did you find some areas where you were delivering value and not pricing relative to that value and increase revenue?  

Jenny Vipperman  27:01  

Yeah, so how about I say we were able to drive the business where we needed the business into positive revenue areas. So for example, right now, everybody is fighting for deposits. So going through this process, being able to take away those fees and make a checking account more accessible, more members were able to get into it, and we were able to get increased deposits, and we are core deposit positive right now. We did complete a merger earlier this year, but even without the merger, we were on track to be positive on our core deposits, that’s everything outside of our certificate, so not the stuff we’re paying the big money for. So it is. It’s working. As we’re increasing our membership and we’re bringing more members in, we’re able also to reduce some of that overhead through scale, so we’re able to replace that. Another thing that we did is using some of the money we would ordinarily use just for an annual dividend. So one of the things that I did when I came on board is I was looking at who’s getting these dividends. How is it being paid out? What we found in millions of dollars in dividends, that the majority of it was going to a very small population, with the world’s best intentions. But if you’re looking at who has the most accounts with you and the highest balances, the majority of this money was going to people with lots of money, millions of dollars in certificates, millions of dollars mortgage loans, and this was a way for us to use some of that money pay everybody and reduce these fees. It costs more than that. So we did have to have growth in other areas, but that was primarily through growth in core deposits, reducing our expense on borrowings and being able to make up the income on that side.  

Doug English  28:43  

What I’m reading is that there were no direct increases in fee revenue from things where you saw that the value to price equation was out of whack. It was more enterprise level changes that occurred from new members and new members generating new revenue from their relationships. Is that right?  

Jenny Vipperman  29:03  

Yes. Can I go with another one? So we do a lot of fighting over the exact same consumers, which I mentioned, credit unions, banks, everybody. We want the same consumers. There are growing populations of consumers that we are under serving. Some of them are because of credit and we’ve talked about that, but some of them are because of language, and it’s something that credit unions have not wanted to touch with a 10-foot pole, overwhelmingly, for a long time. And I think that the time has come and gone that we need to be serving these populations, in particular our Spanish speaking populations. We live in a state where we have counties and cities that more than one in four people speak Spanish, and so we have a very clear strategy to make sure that not only can they do business with us, that they can do business with us in their primary language every step of the way. And Jennifer’s really heading this up as our chief strategy and growth officer in how this rolls out. But it really is a group effort across the organization, through retail, through technology, through legal, through every area. But Jennifer, do you want to talk about, without giving too much away, some of the great things that we’re doing to make sure that we’re growing in these populations as they grow.   

Jennifer Kouchis  30:21  

Absolutely. First of all, I’m a Hispanic American, so I’m very passionate about this and making sure that we have a staff and a support system to serve all our members. And so I’m excited because we’re looking at making sure that, from the lending perspective, that we have courtesy copies and we have something so that all of our members understand what they’re signing right? A lot of times, there’s a lot of members that maybe they speak English, but they prefer to do business in their native language, and so we want to make sure that there’s that comfort level there, and we’re really, really serving that demographic. And so some of the things that we’re doing are the courtesy copies to help through that process, looking at systems and how we might be able to enhance our applications online and things like that when they come in and apply with the information, also in their native language. And then also some of the things that we’re looking at is building out our staff and making sure that we have bilingual employees across the network. A lot of our work on the retail side, our chief experience officer, Chris, is also helping to make sure he staffs up on the retail and the branch side, so that there is support from the time our members come into the branches, or however they like to do business, from originators on the mortgage side to even the collections in the back office and servicing and making sure that we’re able to serve our members. We’re really excited about that as well as some enhanced marketing to make sure that, again, I think we talked about earlier, seeking to serve, that we want to make sure that we’re really serving our entire field of membership across Tennessee. And we want to make sure that we’re removing the barriers that exist today, and that we can make sure that our members can transact and do business in the way that they feel comfortable, and that continues to build that trust and loyalty and allows them to continue to be with us for years to come and for generations to come.  

Doug English  32:10  

Are we able to talk about how any of these initiatives played into the merger, as far as the reason you guys came together the fit and any of that that we can talk about?  

Jenny Vipperman  32:25  

Yeah, absolutely. So we completed a merger with Lowland Credit Union, which is in Morristown, Tennessee. I think I met the CEO Mark my first or second or third week after I got here. And really what was going on is they’re an organization with a really incredible history of serving this community. They had three branches in East Tennessee. They had tremendous member experience. They have a phenomenal staff of people who are really dedicated and very loyal to the organization. And I would say they were, like many credit unions, a bit of a victim of the regulatory landscape that we have. Frankly, it is very difficult for even an organization like theirs, a midsize, $140 million organization, to be able to hire a compliance department, an HR department, and an IP department just you don’t have the resources to do that. And these are things you have to have in 2024 and beyond. And it was not something where they had to merge. It was something where they saw a benefit of having all of these really robust departments in the back office to support their staff, to support their members, it is an opportunity for career growth going forward, and being able to back the rates that we have both on the lower and deposit side, and these reductions in fees that we talked about. The free accounts, and all of these things that when you have the economies of scale, you can achieve, but when you’re that size, you can’t. And we decided, as credit unions that work together, that coming together would benefit their field of membership, their members, and it benefited us as well. And it’s very difficult, as everyone knows, to find quality staff today, and we were able to bring in very knowledgeable, experienced, culturally aligned team members to the organization. So it really benefited. And we’re about to have a huge milestone, and on October 1, we will be converting and merging all of our systems. We’ve already merged as one family, but to be able to convert and merge our name and our system. So it’s been a really positive journey.   

Doug English  34:36  

Awesome, as we look to wrap up any final ideas for our listeners, especially about the vision that got you here. I think that’s what’s driving all of this, is your vision and looking at revenues and through a different lens, and thinking of the ethos of what you’re doing with a different lens. Talk to me about that, or any other final points you want to make for our listeners.  

Jenny Vipperman  35:00  

I will say one thing, and I stole this from somebody that I worked with for a long time who said to me that they like to leave it better than they found it. And I’ve stolen that, and I just believe it so deeply in leave something better than you found it, because at the end, when we retire, when we’re out of here, we want to be able to look back and say that we made something better than it was before. The only other thing I would say is what we need more than ever, really, in this industry, in this movement, is for us all to come back together and advocate. I’ve heard a lot that there are tremendous people who are really into advocacy, but I’ve heard a lot more these days. I don’t really see how it benefits me. Everybody’s fighting for our dollars. So between our leagues, between our advocacy organizations, our advocacy organizations are what keeps this movement and keeps credit unions existing from a legal entity perspective, I just ask everyone, please lean all the way in. Advocate every moment that you can, there is nothing that’s safe. Our tax exempt status is not safe, our fields of membership are not safe. None of it is safe. Please, let’s leave this movement better than we all found it.  

Jennifer Kouchis  36:13  

Definitely and I couldn’t agree more. I think that just making sure that you’re really, really out there advocating and being a voice for change, I would say pushing the boundaries, embracing innovative solutions, and it’s really, it’s through those bold and unconventional strategies we really see success and making sure that everything is not down to the dollar. There’s always a way to do the right thing and to serve our members and meet them where they are. So I would agree with Jenny 100%.  

Doug English  36:42  

There are some great quotes in this podcast, and I’m going to pull them out and put them all over social media. So, thank you so much, Jenny and Jennifer, for what you do, for your membership, for being willing to share it on this podcast, and for your leadership in the credit union movement. I appreciate you both, and I thank you so much for joining me today.  

Jenny Vipperman  37:01  

Thank you so much.  

Episode Links

https://ornlfcu.com/about/meet-team

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyvipperman/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkouchis/

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