How Credit Union 1 Turns AI Ambition into Member-First Action

Doug English: [00:00:00] Todd Gunderson and Nicole Haverly, welcome to C.U. On The Show. I’m delighted to have you with us today to talk about how you’ve been implementing AI at Credit Union 1. So, before we get started I always like to find out how you first got started and working with the Credit Union movement.

How’d you get started, Todd?

Todd Gunderson: You know, I was, I guess I’ll say I was a bank convert. I worked for Wells Fargo for 16 years, right outta college transitioned from there into the credit union space at Michigan Schools and Government Credit Union. Probably going back about…jeez… I don’t know, 10, 15 years now, and was a Chief lending Officer.

So it seemed like a natural progression, it was interesting to make the transition. I think that in the credit union space, you’re able to see your impact and see your work a lot closer and a lot more quickly. I found that exciting, not having to have a meeting about a meeting, about a meeting before [00:01:00] we made a decision and, you know, trying to figure out how can we help the member a lot more quickly was, was a, a nice change of pace.

So that was how I came to be where I’m at right now.

Doug English: Very good. Thank you Nicole.

Nicole Haverly: Yeah, thanks for asking. I started in the credit union space actually about 15 years ago. I worked at two larger credit unions in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The last role I had at the last credit union was overseeing all things credit risk, and was utilizing our platform.

And so I came over then to nCino about seven years ago, oversaw a few different sectors here at nCino, but landed in my favorite, which is the credit union movement. So now I just get to work with credit unions like, Todd and 4,500 credit unions in this space. Really making sure that they understand what their members are asking and understand that they can utilize efficiencies and technology well.

Doug English: So let’s start with [00:02:00] what are you, what are the two of you teamed up on? Now we’re gonna go back to how it came to be. Well, let’s start with. What are you guys doing together right now? Tell us a bit bit, Nicole, maybe a little bit about what nCino does and then Todd, I wanna understand how you, you decided about this initiative.

What strategy did it come from? Let’s go back to how it began after Nicole tells us where it is today.

Nicole Haverly: Yeah, so nCino, we started in 2011 really focused on a commercial workflow. Just problem that we had in the entire financial institution industry but what have really evolved since then, so we are really a single intelligent platform end to end that can look at your membership, onboarding and account opening, your consumer lending, all the way up to your small business account opening, lending and commercial.

And what’s awesome about nCino is we wrap all of that with intelligence and analytics. So every part and step of the way, you’ll have your continuous monitoring, [00:03:00] , your portfolio management across all your deposits and your lending side of the house. So, we’ve helped a lot of banks and credit unions globally across the globe, but when Todd had approached us really with his forward thinking mindset and strategy, we were able to team up.

So it’s been pretty awesome.

Doug English: So, Todd, tell us where, where from your strategic plan or what caused you to start down the path of ai and then how did you decide what to do first?

Todd Gunderson: Well, I’ll say just like Nicole, I’m a lender at heart. When I was at Wells, I was the SVP of operations for all the US and Canada.

So it was all of the things that she talked about and figuring out how do we take that data, how do we take all that information and help our members grow and succeed? So as we started talking about what that looks like, we were looking for a partner that could help us in a variety of different ways, you know. We do consumer [00:04:00] lending, we do the mortgages, the HELOCs, the indirect, but we also have a large commercial platform in addition to small business lending.

So we needed to be able to do everything seamlessly. I like to have a scenario where it looks, the look and feel is the same regardless across any platform. We’d gotten feedback from the team. They said, you know, the way that we do things here is ask them, you know, what are the biggest hurdles that you’re encountering?

They’re like, our process is broken. How do we go about doing this? The seamlessness of working at Apple applications, interacting with, whether it’s dealers, commercial brokers, whatever it is, it’s just clunky. So we wanted something that flowed a little bit better, and so that was from the frontline perspective of what their needs were.

I’m a big believer right now where AI needs to be incorporated is the fact that our competition isn’t all the other credit unions. It isn’t Chase Bank. It isn’t Chime. It’s Amazon, it’s Apple, it’s Google. It’s Facebook, it’s YouTube it, it’s TikTok. People want an experience [00:05:00] and people talk about the credit union movement, and I think sometimes they feel like they’re betraying that Well, don’t you care about the member?

Well, yes, the member wants an amazing experience, and when you give that, then they want to come back. They want to figure out, how can I be helped again? You’ve made it easy for them. So that’s where I think AI is the biggest opportunity is can you provide something as easy as Amazon can where I can say, Hey, Siri, or Hey, you know, Alexa, I need some toilet paper.

I don’t even have to get up for my desk and toilet paper is sitting out outside my door in a package. That is what the members expect nowadays. They don’t go from Amazon, get off of that and say, Hey, can I have a clunky experience at the credit union? Just ’cause you’re a credit union. Those days are gone.

They want that same all in one touch package. That they can experience, and that’s what’s gonna help the membership grow, but it’s also gonna help us serve their needs. It it’s just the FinTech way of life. It’s just, it is, that’s just the, the expectation now. It’s not, it’s no [00:06:00] longer even a competitive advantage.

I’d say it’s table stakes, that if you don’t have it, you, you’re not even gonna be considered as an opportunity to win their business.

Doug English: So is, is this the first AI initiative you have deployed at Credit Union 1?

Todd Gunderson: No, we have multiple ones going across various channels. You know, whether it’s within the call center, whether it’s within the CRM, you know, the different ways that the different platforms are talking to each other.

By, by no means are we perfect. I mean, we certainly have a lot of opportunity. I think if anybody’s honest with themselves, everybody’s in that same boat, which is, Hey, we’ve got all these really cool toys that we can play with. That’s one thing. But how do you make them talk to each other? I don’t wanna log into eight different, you know, AI platforms and figure out how do I pull that information?

We’re trying to pull it into one source of truth and figure out how can everybody access that to best help the membership base regardless of whatever channel they’re coming [00:07:00] through.

Doug English: So you have three different AI initiatives going on in the credit union now. Is that, is that right?

Todd Gunderson: I would say at least, I know we’re just getting done standing up, like talk desks and nCino and we’re, we’re applying this within, you know the commercial underwriting, small business underwriting, which I, to me are two different things within the indirect platform.

Also within the onboarding, I think we’re one of the top sponsors for co-tribute, which is why we have some of the highest adoption rates when it comes to checking accounts. So this isn’t my first podcast doing this. It seems like we’re getting more and more requests to do these things because I think that they’re, they’re an expectation. So yeah, we’re willing to listen to anybody that’s out there and figure out how do we make this work and how do we connect the dots between the different AI opportunities. So those are a few off the top of my head.

Doug English: So how did you and Nicole come to work together? How, how, [00:08:00] what would cause you to choose nCino for this solution?

And then how has the, like, tell us a little bit about the timeline and, and what the impacts have been.

Todd Gunderson: I’m trying to think. The biggest thing is, is I’ve always been a believer in indirect. I, I think it’s one of the biggest opportunities that credit unions failed to take advantage of. I think throughout the industry, you know, you have 4,500 credit unions.

I, I would say you probably have a hundred that really understand it and know it and feel comfortable with it and realize what a blessing it can be from the membership base. I mean, the fact is, is all of our members buy cars at dealerships and for whatever reason, so many people ignore that fact and walk away from it.

So, where it originally started was we want to have a powerful and direct process to extend our membership base. We do a lot of loan participations and sell those out so that we can reinvest that money and continue to help more and more. As we’re doing that, we’ve got a pretty experienced team and they’re like, Hey Todd, our, our platform isn’t robust enough.

If we’re gonna do this, then let’s get a robust platform. Great. That’s [00:09:00] step one. So they walked in and said, here’s what it is. We look at three things. It’s either people, process or product. We felt like we had the product, we felt like we had the people, but we didn’t have the process.

So maybe we didn’t have that. But the process we were doing, it was clunky. If we wanted to do it at the volume we did, that needed to be smoother. So they came in and presented and said, this is what we want. If we’re gonna get to where, if you want us to get to where we think we can go, this is what we need.

So then the next step is, is we have a large volume of commercial lending. I mean, we’ll do upwards of $400 million in a year in commercial. We can’t have just something that’s gonna help us with, you know, the indirect piece and then go to another platform for the commercial lending. And then another PAT platform for what I would consider the small business lending aspect.

And so as we looked at and seen, we’re like, okay, these are things that we can take and make it all into one so that there isn’t like I said, three different screens that are open on three different platforms of underwriting. And then now we’re pulling in data from somewhere else. So [00:10:00] we wanted to figure out how do we seamlessly integrate the data that we have along all the multiple portfolio platforms that we have?

Segment it out at different levels, like an indirect, we want the ability to segment it out by maybe even auto type. You know, how does a Ford Fusion compare to a Toyota, a Toyota Camry hybrid and at the different FICO levels, what the pricing should be and the portfolio and all those things. And then also be able to do that in the small business banking, you know, what does a mom and pop, you know, barber shop look like underwriting compared to a $4 million, you know, multifamily home.

Those are all things that we wanted to find someone who could do all of that well. And that’s what led us down the path.

Doug English: And, and what aspect of, of that is ai? Where, how does AI get involved there?

Todd Gunderson: The AI aspect of it is I think that we wanna be able to figure out how to automate 75% of that decision making.

I mean, we can build the [00:11:00] algorithms and take that. So whether it’s on the bottom part of the funnel where you have the auto declines and there’s just scenarios where that happens so that you can free up that time, and then you have the auto approvals that you’re going to approve no matter what. And what that does is allows a lot of things to happen.

It means that Sunday night at midnight, if you wanna apply for an auto loan, that we can go ahead and approve that on your timeframe, how you’d like to do it. It also creates an opportunity for our team members to be available for you. I think there’s this misnomer that technology means that the personal side is less touch, it actually increases that.

Mm-hmm. If I can go ahead and underwrite automated, it allows me and you, Doug, to have a conversation around where do you wanna go with your finances? Okay. Yes, we’re doing a loan for you on the indirect side or the consumer side, but in that process we’ve discovered, hey, we could probably re-underwrite your Chase loan, lower your payment 50 bucks by, you know, giving you a lower rate or consolidating some debt.

Or, [00:12:00] you know, it looks like you’re trying to do some home improvement. You can have a holistic conversation that can last 30 to 40 minutes because I’m not sitting there spending time underwriting decisions that it can be done in a matter of seconds based off of data that, that is repetitive and reliable.

Doug English: Nicole, did you have anything you wanted to expand on there?

Nicole Haverly: Yeah, no, I, when Todd and I and our teams kind of met up last year, Todd’s strategic leadership is extremely visionary. Credit union 1 is not solving for today’s problems. They’re looking outward and saying, how do we make sure that we can solve these for all of our members and non-members who deserve to be a part of their membership?

So I felt that right away and our team did with just Todd and his team. And I think you really doubled down on something, Todd, and that’s like relationship and tech are not mutually exclusive. And I think that’s the, a stigma in our, just the, the culture and the industry as well right now [00:13:00] and I like talking about this when it comes to like scalability and the manner in which Todd and team will be able to, he talked about the Sunday night, the midnight items, when credit unions can prioritize the personal relationships, but also then use modern technology, you’re getting both of those items in one.

You’re not gonna have to be able to go through the things that shouldn’t be manual. But actually get in front of your members’ financial situations and their milestones and move from a reactive stance more to a proactive stance with the members. So Todd and his team, we’ve just felt that since the beginning that they wanna transform and they’ve always been ahead. But to continue to do that on behalf of their entire membership base is right on.

Doug English: Yeah. Well that’s why we are glad to have you on the podcast. ’cause this, this is the information we wanna share with the rest of the movement. So how did, did your, have you seen metrics that you can talk about that have increased?

You know, the, the, what it says on the envelope with AI is more [00:14:00] personalization and a greater productivity. Have you seen that? Have you seen more approvals, more, more volume?

Todd Gunderson: Yeah, there’s a few things that are happening. Part of it, we started having the L rings back in COVID when we weren’t able to see people, and this will be a weird evolution, but we realized that the less people we had walking into the branch, the more loan volume we did and the more our deposits grew.

Mm-hmm. And the reason that was is because we had time to talk to members, it changed the scope of people thinking about, well, you have to have someone in place. We just had this discussion today slash argument of, Hey, how do we build this one member at a time? Because people are like, oh, you have to help one member at a time.

You do. But if you can create an environment where you can help one member at a time more frequently and for longer periods of time, you’re going to help them succeed at a much higher level. And you’re going to have your credit union grow at a much higher level. So what it’s done is it’s freed up time.

We want our branches to be conversation centers. [00:15:00] We’re not trying to have you stop by and drop a check off or stop by and figure out how to make a withdrawal. I mean, all of those things can be done automated and it isn’t, Hey, we don’t put up a barricade that says you’re not welcome to the branch. It’s like, Hey, let’s educate you on the fact that you just paid for gas at three, $4 a gallon to drive somewhere to do something that you could have saved yourself time and money doing.

And we could have helped you a lot more efficiency, a lot more efficiently. A lot of people come into the branch ’cause they just don’t know any different. So part of that is educating them on, Hey, you’ve got this tool. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s not supposed to be distraction. This is the people’s branch.

Mm-hmm. The only time you walk into a branch is usually you’re angry about how something’s going, or you need a really in-depth conversation around more of a complicated scenario. Maybe it’s related to investment banking or maybe it’s related to your retirement scenario or all those types of things.

So by applying AI, the personalization has increased. [00:16:00] Well, that means I like the experience. You don’t have to then be the rate leader. Everyone’s always concerned about, hey, the lowest rate is what wins. No, it doesn’t. The experience always wins. If I treat you well, you will come back. You won’t even shop me.

And I’m not saying that allows you to have rates that are out of market. You have to have rates that are in market. But people lead with the wrong stuff. They lead with the fact that, you know, it’s the old Maya Angelou thing. People forget what you said. They remember how you were treated. How did you make me feel?

You made me feel good. I’m coming back. That’s what we want the branches for. The rest of it, it’s, I, the credit union space is turned upside down and I don’t think people get it yet. It used to be that the call centers were in place to support the branches. ’cause people would walk in and if you weren’t available, I’ll call the branch.

If I, I’ll call if I have to or I’ll use chat if, if I have to. Where now it’s like my kids are like, I don’t want to talk to anybody ever. I want to chatbot. Mm-hmm. And if you can’t do that, I’m not going to bank with you. That’s just a fact. So if you’re not gonna meet them in the chat bot world, you’re not getting them.

If you’re not [00:17:00] gonna meet me, I’m a phone call guy. If you’re not gonna meet me at the call center, you’re not gonna get my business. If you’re not gonna go ahead and have automated AI that can answer a phone at two o’clock in the morning, ’cause maybe I work the night shift and you’re not available when the branch is open, then how are you helping me?

That’s what AI does and because of that, your loan volume goes up. We’ve always been a lending shop. I mean, we’re not an investment center. Our money is designed to be out on the street. So at a minimum, we’re looking to be 85% lent out, you know, depending on where we’re at. And that’s what the members expect.

So it’s a long-winded conversation, but, or answer, but I, I think that’s where people are missing the boat. It, it’s not mutually exclusive. The AI frees up time, it drives efficiencies and it creates more opportunity for personalization and the member experience. We measure every single interaction with the member, whether it’s online, whether it’s in person or on the phone, and say, what did you think of [00:18:00] us?

And then they’re giving us that direct feedback so that we can constantly figure out how do we tweak the Artificial intelligence, whether it’s in the underwriting aspect of things, whether it’s in the call center, whether it’s within the chat bot, all of the interactive things that we have going on. You, you say it, I probably can think of five or six different AI things.

I, part of it’s you, you kind of forget the things that you’re working on. Mm-hmm. But you know, whether, you know, you have the chat bot as ai, the talk to us as ai, the underwriting, the, you know, just the different aspects that we can lean into.

Nicole Haverly: I think, Todd, what, what’s important about what you’re saying is that you guys have embedded that into your culture already.

And so when you say like, sometimes we forget about it, it’s because that is the way of working at Credit Union 1. And I’ve, I’ve seen that as well. And you’ve talked about this more like flexibility of an omnichannel experience anywhere, right? You’re meeting, and let’s talk about Gen Z right now.

They’re mobile first and they’re always on. So you are taking the individuals who wanna come into a branch. Maybe it’s for a more complex commercial onboarding [00:19:00] or alone, but you then may have kiosks that are sitting in a branch with iPads that they can start some of the applications while you have a mobile first environment where anytime of the, you know, morning hours or evening, your members can come on as well.

I think with that you are being able to then offer this financial advice outside of just the transactions. You’re really curating interactions that are formed in trust with your members too.

Todd Gunderson: Yeah, I, I would agree. I think the other thing that’s really allowed us to incorporate into it is the financial education and wellness platforms that we have.

So this is always the big bellwether thing that credit unions talk about is financial education and financial wellness. And the fact is, most of ’em are actually pretty poor. They hand you a book and say, read this and you’ll understand that it’s, today it needs to be a little bit of the ai, the technology driven that takes into account, like if you look at our financial education platform, if all three of us go on there right now, it’s gonna spit out a different plan.

It’s gonna ask you, Doug, well what is your risk tolerance [00:20:00] versus my risk tolerance? How many kids do you have? How many are in college versus how many aren’t? I mean, I got a 5-year-old. I don’t, I mean, all my kids are college, but you know, you have a newborn versus this, you’re buying a house versus, Hey, I’m towards retirement.

All of these are variables. And it used to be that, hey, we’re gonna educate our members on how to be savvy from a financial education standpoint. We need you to get a better FICO score, but no one tells ’em how to get that better FICO score. They don’t go ahead and say, Hey, based on where you’re at, your credit card debt needs to drop $1,932 if you want your FICO score to rise 32 points.

And you can’t take on a car loan if you do this. And if you do these things and your FICO score raises from 684 up to 732, your rate is now gonna drop 1.9 points and that’s gonna save you 200. I’m making this up, you know, for illustrated purpose, but it’s gonna save you $2,000 over the course of the loan.

That’s financial education and wellness. That actually can do some, I can do something with you now as we’re sitting there, as opposed to in the old days, it’s like, well [00:21:00] Doug, I need you to pay your bills. Yep, I’m up to speed on that. Then what? You know, well, what happens if I get a car? Well, you’ll have more debt.

That’ll be bad. Okay. People don’t understand the how. If they don’t understand, okay, well if I do it, then why are you asking me to do it? Well, because higher rates are more expensive. Well, what does that mean to me in real terms? You know, in real dollars. Well, it means that you might have an extra $516 a month in expendable income to go on a vacation that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford, and your quality of life improves.

That’s financial education as it should be in today’s world. Instead of the old tired and true of, well, we’re the credit union. We care about our members and we’re gonna talk to you about, you know, and we’re gonna have you come down to the community center and talk about how to get a first mortgage loan that’s just dated.

It’s old, it’s tired, and that’s why no one’s showing up at those events. I mean, that’s what needs to change. And so, interestingly enough, our [00:22:00] financial education and wellness platforms are now driving growth, especially with the millennials and the Gen Zs and all these people, because here’s what they’ll tell you.

Make it quick on this and teach me something in the process, and I’m your consumer. Drag it out and make it boring, and I’m going to disconnect from you. And that’s an expectation. And I, and I also don’t buy into the fact, I mean, my mom’s 77, 78, I mean, believe it or not, she’s got an iPhone. She knows how to use it.

Mm-hmm. I, I get so tired of hearing about how old people don’t know how to use phones and they don’t know how to use apps. If they didn’t, they’re literally disconnected from life. Mm-hmm. Guess what? Grandparents have grandkids. They wanna see pictures of their grandkids, so they want to know what they’re doing.

So guess what they do? They figure out how to use apps to follow their grandchildren’s lives, which means they can simply download a financial app and learn how to do that stuff. It’s kind of like we talk down to ’em like they’re idiots of, well old people don’t get it. [00:23:00] No, they do. You’re just being really ignorant about the fact that old people are actually still smart.

They’re still capable. They still know how to dial a phone and they still know how to upload an app. And even if they don’t, the grandkids that they’re trying to keep track of will help them and they’ll figure it out. So I do believe in the omnichannel. I do believe you have to meet the people where they’re at and people who wanna walk into the branch.

You absolutely have to be there. But I think that what we like to do in the credit union industry is tell ourself a story of, oh no, Todd, you gotta understand the old people. The old people don’t wanna, they want to come into the branches. I’m like, no, you force ’em into the branches because you don’t give them an alternative.

‘Cause I’d be willing to bet if you gave them alternatives regarding AI and being efficient, that as much as you like to tell yourself a story, this is almost my favorite. No, they come into the branch ’cause they really like us. They don’t like you more than their family. They don’t like you more than their spouse.

If you’re gonna give them the chance to drive and see you versus drive and see their kid across town, play a ball game. You’re not gonna win. And, but we’d love to tell ourselves that [00:24:00] story of no, we’re, we’re here for them because they really like to come and see us. It’s most likely they’re coming in ’cause you have given them no other alternative but to come in. Once they have another alternative, you’re gonna find out that they’re gonna show up less and less, but your volume will actually go up if you provide ’em an experience that is convenient to them to do business on their terms. We’re really good at the credit union industry of saying, no, we’re gonna make you do business on our terms, which is coming to the branch because we’re a part of the community.

That’s the other one that drives me nuts, is that somehow if you have technology and AI, that you’re not connected to the community and that you just don’t care about the credit union movement. I mean, I, I’ve never heard something so asinine as people, and people actually believe that in our industry they do.

And if you talk about it, like, I just like, oh, he is kind of a jerk. He doesn’t get it. And it’s like. No, you don’t get it. Like your members are on Amazon, they’re on Google, they’re on TikTok, and you’ve seem for some reason to think that they expect a different [00:25:00] experience when dealing with you ’cause that makes you feel better.

I just, you know, I think that’s why I’m a love you or hate you type of personality where people are gonna be like, no, he gets it and now they’re gonna, people are gonna be like, he’s a jerk and he doesn’t understand and he is disconnected from the movement. And I’m like, I think you are disconnected from the movement.

Because someone that’s at a small credit union really wants online banking that’s really robust. Why would they not? I mean, just because they’re at a small credit union doesn’t mean they don’t want these features. Just means that they’re not available or they haven’t been made aware of it. So I could go on for hours about that.

I, as you can tell, my tone changes, my voice changes. I get fired up about it. ’cause I think it’s a constant battle internally of that somehow if you’re trying to better yourself, that that means you’re disconnected from the credit union movement. And it just drives me nuts.

Doug English: Nicole, were you gonna add to that?

Nicole Haverly: Yeah, Todd, we’ve had some conversations about this, but it’s, you’re right of meeting them where they want and need to be [00:26:00] met and giving them the tools. Who, who doesn’t wanna be self-sufficient in this world? I’m assuming a lot of people wanna be able to do what they want and if they don’t know how to get there, teach ’em how to fish.

Going back to some users that are, maybe they don’t know everything about the iPhone, but they do wanna learn about the financial literacy so that they can make best decisions on behalf of their financial lives. I liked Todd when we were talking a little bit about the using automation and AI to give, whether it’s, you know, the next best product, whatever you need to do to enhance the financial situations.

Credit unions do not have a lack of data at their fingertips. It’s what they’re doing with that data. Data and how they’re gonna move it forward. I always think about. In going back, I, my primary financial institution is still in Wisconsin. I have never, I haven’t needed to go into a branch in 15 years and yet I have done everything with that credit union for the last 15 years.

They have every detail about my financial situations, [00:27:00] my transactions, my deposits, all my lending activities, my credit card statements, all of the milestones that I’ve gone through, including the, the three little girls that I have in their accounts. AI should be able to use that data and be able, when I call in or I go into my mobile, online app, whatever that is, succinctly help me with my path forward without having to dig through data.

I do love my days. 15 years ago, I could sit with a member in front of me, print out the credit report, go through things that’s not scalable nor efficient, right? And so how do we make sure that we use technology and partner with the right people to bring that still to life while having those relationships with our communities and our members?

Todd Gunderson: And, and the reality of it is, is that the more scalable it becomes, the more you’re able to create savings that you could pass along back to the membership. Mm-hmm. I mean, if you’re gonna talk about that we’re member owned, well, the whole point of being efficient and using technology is to reduce expenses, is to be able to offer lower rates, is to be able to [00:28:00] offer higher rates on the deposits.

That doesn’t come unless you can find a way to cut the expenses out, to push ’em down that path of dividend payouts or, or loan reduction amounts. So it’s, it’s not a fairytale lala land of, Hey, we’re just gonna have high, high deposit rates and loan loan rates, but we’re not gonna figure out how do we make things automated and efficient so that the member benefits from that.

And I’ll hear you. Here’s the other thing is we’re really good at the credit space. Acting like the banks or the evil empire in Star Wars. And the reality of is all of the new members that are being gained are going to banks because they have the technology platforms, they have the service, and this is data.

This isn’t my feelings right now. Credit unions are being outperformed by banks over the last five years in customer service. And we used to love to pound our chest and go, we’re way better. We have best or we don’t. We’re lacking and we’re losing members because of it. But people are unwilling to say, well, how [00:29:00] come you like Chime?

I mean, you’ve never talked to a person ever, and yet you’ve got 30 billion in assets that have grown. And so what does that tell you that people are really trying to strive for? They want service, they want easy, and they want a great experience. That’s what their number one goal in life right now is, is make my life easier.

I will do business with you. Mm-hmm. But we’re really, really good on going no, banks are evil. People don’t like ’em. It’s kind of almost like the divide in the country of Democrats and Republicans. It’s like, well, not everybody’s an idiot. Like so there are people on the banking side that do things really, really well that we should be stealing from them.

We do things on our side really, really well. Why are we not figuring out how to create a hybrid of that that benefits the member instead of arguing, Nope, I’m right. Or you are right. That that’s just stupid.

Doug English: I wanna try to wrap up with a final couple of, of ideas. So I, I’d ask each of you to comment on two things.

[00:30:00] One, if Todd, you’re obviously, you, you’re way ahead of most of the movement in implementation of ai. But if you worked, if you could talk to a, you know, still a large credit union that had only touch the, the very beginnings of ai. How would you suggest they evaluate where to take action? What, what would the first and second steps be?

And then, the second question is, what’s next for credit Union? One, what do you see yourself, what, what is the next area where AI might, might start to be a part of your member service experience?

Todd Gunderson: First, I think the easiest place to go to is ask your team members that you currently have and your board, especially if you’re large, a large organization, and say, why don’t you bank with us?

They’ll tell you. That’s what we did. We went out and asked the member, our own team members, and I’m like, how come you guys don’t have your checking account with us? They’re like, one of ’em, one of the biggest answers was, believe it or not, you don’t pay two days early. I [00:31:00] said, so you’re telling me if we just get the technology to get your paycheck two days early, you’ll change?

They’re like, yes. You know it, they are consumers. They’re a free focus group for you. I, I sit in our boardroom and I ask this question all the time. Why don’t you have every product with us? Well, your product sucks. What? Well, what part sucks? I mean, what do we need to change here? Okay, so once we do this, then you’re telling me that you’ll move your high yield savings over from Ally to us because we don’t have that product.

You’re making things too clunky. You know, it takes me too long to get your mortgage approved. These are all real conversations we have. Okay? I can call Rocket Mortgage, and Rocket Mortgage can have me approved within a matter of an hour, and my loan is closed within X amount of time. Well, that’s all related to ai.

Rocket Mortgage has an amazing AI platform. They have an amazing sales follow up platform, and people love it. Well, if you’ve got your own team members where you work are telling you, Hey, I’m going to other places, then do what they’re doing. You, you know, you don’t have to be the smartest guy in the room to figure out.

Most products are already [00:32:00] out there. You just have to replicate ’em and figure out how to tweak ’em and make ’em your own unique, you know, product that fits your base. So I’d say you have your own pilot group that you can tap into with your own team members, especially if you’re a large credit union, you probably got 3, 4, 500 people you could ask of varying ages from 22 to 65 and why they’re doing that.

So that’s where I would start part, is in that capacity. And so, and that’s what we did and it was eye-opening. It, it was, it was, it was really eye-opening to have people kind of punch you in the mouth and go, yes, you, you guys are not getting it. And it was your own employees. And then here’s the other thing.

If you do that, you now have a free marketing team because your team now is using your products. So when members walk through the door and they’re like, well, what do you think about this? Well actually, you know, Doug, I have this product. Let me talk to you about it. It cuts down on your training. I don’t have to train you on a product that you already have.

So that would, the other thing that we talked about is, hey, this actually improves our [00:33:00] marketing. It actually improves our, our product knowledge just by sheer having the product ourselves. And so that’s the other thing I think that’s helped us grow. It’s all kind of goofy, quirky stuff that you don’t think about, but you’re like, okay, we’re actually a lot more educated on our own products than we were.

So that’s where I would start because it’s, I, I think a lot of people like to make things complicated and it doesn’t need to be, what was the other question? What, what’s next for us?

Doug English: Yeah. Yeah. If you want Nicole to add on to that, it’ll give you a second to think about what’s next.

Nicole Haverly: Yeah, no, I, I think when you’re thinking about digital transformation too, digital is a gateway and it’s not the end of it.

I do believe that like the conversations we had previously, meeting people at that digital is the first step of building that trust. And when you know that you’re acknowledging that they are busy individuals and that if you can give these items at their fingertips via intelligence and ai, I, our CEO [00:34:00] here tells everyone, the second that you put in earbuds to do a task, that task probably can be more efficient or automated and let’s, and then we sit and we figure things out. I see credit unions coming really to nCino and to other platforms saying, we know that we can do better here, and we wanna make sure that that digital transformation and forefront is where we’re headed towards.

I’ve seen it in a lot of conversations that shows strategic maturity as well. I see credit unions like credit union 1, but you’ve been ahead of the curve here, Todd. Shifting really from experimentation with ai, more to like intentionality of ai. And we know that we need to do this to not only serve our members, but to stay relevant in today’s market.

So the next question is what’s next?

Todd Gunderson: I think what’s next is allowing people to choose how they wanna do the business. We already talked about, but here’s what it looks like in real life, is she used the headphone example. I, I’m one of those where if I want to complete something digitally [00:35:00] on my own, don’t force me not to, and I’ll, I’ll use this time to bash American Airlines.

I mean, the fact is, is that I’ve got a ticket credit from a thing. I am told to copy and paste my ticket number into their website and they get to a certain point and they’re like, please contact us. I don’t want to contact you. You’re forcing me to interact in a manner that I do not want to. Now I’m gonna bash you on social media and tell you how ineffective you are.

I mean, that’s just the, the, the real world, the membership at Credit Union 1 should say, let me do things the way that I want to do things.

That is what our goal is. That means that when you have your loan get paid off, do you really need to call us to get your title or shouldn’t we automate that to the pac that you don’t even say anything. The last payment comes in, the amount of time goes by that needs to say, Hey, it’s 10 days, it’s safe.

And we automatically send that out, whether it’s required or not. Just little everyday back office functionality that doesn’t [00:36:00] require a person to interact, but yet we still require it. So what our goal is, and we are nowhere near this, so I don’t wanna pretend like we are, is. Every single thing should be done without human interaction.

Then if you want it, you can have that. If you’re like, I would prefer to do that, great. That is your choice. But I don’t wanna force a member down a path of talking to someone when there’s not a need to talk to someone. And that becomes the ease of use. And if we make that easy and we make that experiment or that experience, great for them, here’s what happens.

They tell somebody else, they’ll be like, God, you wouldn’t believe Doug, how easy this was for me. I was sitting there watching TV, and I did a loan on my phone. I was, had everything done within a matter of minutes or at the end of the loan. It’s like, yeah, I had my title back in 10 days. Didn’t even have to talk to anybody.

And then they did this, this, and this, and they set me up for a new car loan without even having to go through this. That’s what I want my biggest slap in the face. And I’ll tell you, I’m a really big analogy guy based off of real life, my [00:37:00] wife and I at first in our relationship, obviously I’m the CEO. I come home and she talks about how she started a home equity loan for us.

I’m like, what on God’s green Earth are you doing? She’s like, well, I was, I was, I go, you understand what I do for a living and how we pay the bills here, right? And she’s like, yeah. But I was at my office and I just talked to them for a minute and they took care of everything. I didn’t even have to leave my desk.

Our rate was a full three quarters of a point better than where she banks at. Didn’t matter to her. She just said, I just called them and they did it. Didn’t have any idea what the rate was, didn’t care. She’s just like, but it’s done. And I was like, well, that’s great. That’ll be a takeaway for us to get better at the credit union, but we’re not doing a loan with the bank because we’re just not.

But it was a real wake up call that I’m married to someone and they’re still going to another banking opportunity because they made it easier for us.

Nicole Haverly: Yes. Ease of [00:38:00] transaction and relationships, right. Trumps rates. Yep.

Todd Gunderson: That’s what has to happen. And it happens at every single situation. And that’s how you create brand, that’s how you create presence. It’s how you create awareness. It’s, I always joke with the team, look at Chick-fil-A. All their commercials are not about the quality of their food. It’s about somebody sitting on a red couch talking about how, you know that I need a spicy chicken and a lemonade. I think my kid’s gonna lose their, you know, softball.

That that’s the connectivity. It isn’t the chicken, it’s the experience. Yeah. That’s what’s next for us is how do we get to that level where people are talking about us sitting on a couch because of what we did. And unfortunately, I think people are gonna go, oh, you don’t get it? That’s not part of the credit union movement.

And I’m gonna be like, well, I think we’re gonna help a hell of a lot more people than you are. So which one are you gonna use as a measuring stick? You know, talking about it or doing it.

Nicole Haverly: If I can add as Todd kind of creates that vision. [00:39:00] Another thing that’s important, at least for our culture at nCino too, is providing the visibility and the awareness to your members along that journey with credit union 1 or whichever credit union it is, right?

I, when I’m doing something that’s easy, I also wanna know that, hey Todd, the, the text ping that says I’m gonna get my title in 10 days. Right? Instead of questioning where it’s coming or when you’re in an an application and you need to know exactly was the appraisal ordered and it came in your inbox.

Those things matter to us and users too ’cause we wanna know what next step that is. And finding partners in technology that allows, again, that visibility on the member side to know exactly where they’re at in any of their processes really, really matters. So.

Todd Gunderson: So, you know, it’s funny you talk about the visibility.

One of the things that changed our growth was caller ID and letting people, it was letting ’em know it was us that was calling, because you get a lot of people, it’s like, I don’t recognize this number. Yeah. And it costs money to let them know that your calling, but when we did the acceptance rates of our calls went up, which means the service went up, which means the experience [00:40:00] went up, which means you do more loans and you do it a lot more efficiency.

But it was little things like that. Like you said, it’s silly, but they’re like, I just wanna know you are who you say you are, and figure that out.

Doug English: Yeah. Especially with the amount of phishing and other forms of fraud that we have in this call today. Yeah, absolutely. Well Todd Gunderson from Credit Union 1, thank you for, for helping your membership, for helping me capture this data to share with the credit union industry and Nicole Haverly, with nCino, thank you as well for the impact you’re making on the credit union movement. I, I love what we’ve talked about today. I hope our listeners will use this, capture the information and continue to drive the credit union movement forward. So with that, thanks everybody. Thanks, Todd. Thank you.