01/26/2009

Do you want some TARP?

By Tim McAlpine

 
I am not an expert on the US economy (or the Canadian economy for that matter). I can't profess to know which side is up in the current economic situation. All I know is that any discussion about TARP funds gets a lot of US credit union advocates pretty upset. See here and here and here and here.

Oh, and the other thing I know, is that if you hit play on the above video, this song will be in your head all day.

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08/04/2008

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac explained Pecha Kucha style by Ginny Brady.

By Tim McAlpine

Ginny Brady from the Boardcast blog in New York put together a very informative Pecha Kucha presentation on the recent unravelling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the US.

Check it out. I found it really helpful to understand how the financial services industry and the US economy got into this mess. Great job Ginny.

By the way, a Pecha Kucha (pronounced "peh-chak-cha") is a presentation given in 20 slides and a maximum of 20 seconds per slide. If you want to try this form of presentation live, there are eight spots still available at the upcoming BarCampBankBC. Click here to find out more information.

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07/23/2008

Get 'em while they're young and pissed!

By Tim McAlpine

A Generation Y and X study has concluded that 53% of those in Gen X (30-42 years old) and 61% of Gen Y (18-29 years old) had either changed their primary financial institution (PFI) or considered doing so in the past two years. That compares with 20% of the Silent Generation and 37% of Baby Boomers surveyed.

Some of the key findings:

The survey indicates that young people can be more impatient, less tolerant and harder to please than their cohorts in the older generations. It also found that younger customers are more likely than older customers to find fault or have problems with their primary financial institutions. For example: 37% of Gen Y and 36% of Gen X believe they would get better customer service at a different bank;   22% of Gen Y and 21% of Gen X reported being upset in the past year about high fees, compared with 14% of Boomer and 6% of Silent Generation respondents; and    18% of Gen Y and 17% of Gen X reported being upset about a lack of ATM locations, compared with 11% of Boomers and 3% of the Silent Generation.

This report should be very encouraging to credit unions. With the average age of credit union members pushing 50, attracting young people is definitely on credit union leaders' minds.

The biggest issue I see is that while young people are open to change, credit unions aren't doing enough to get on young people's consideration list. So unfortunetly that change is more than likely to be from one bank to another bank.

Since young people are not in love with their primary financial institution, credit unions have a great opportunity to step up and be that alternative that young people are obviously craving.

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07/01/2008

Wow. An actual brand-spanking-new credit union is being formed in Canada!

By Tim McAlpine

Canadian artists, film and television industry professionals are celebrating their approval to incorporate the newest credit union in Toronto, the Creative Arts Savings and Credit Union.

It will be a banking institution tailored to meet the needs of working artists and professionals in the entertainment industry.

"“This is great news for artists," said Peter Keleghan, Canadian star (Made in Canada, The Newsroom, Billable Hours) and Creative Arts board member. "In the past, traditional banks have tended to overlook our needs. It’s high time an institution was created to give artists a leg up, by providing access to the financial services many other people take for granted."

The approval marks a key milestone in a long process that was spearheaded by ACTRA, together with the DGC-O, IATSE, NABET and other film and television industry guilds and unions. Creative Arts is poised to begin operations, after it raises $2.5 million in start-up capital through investment shares.

My take

This is very cool! It's refreshing to read about a credit union being born rather than another one being merged out of existence.

It's reads like a good screenplay—a compelling story with a compelling name and an interesting cast of characters. This is a credit union being built from the ground up to meet the needs of a specific group of people with very specific financial needs. This is what credit unions used to be all about! Good luck Creative Arts Savings and Credit Union.

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06/20/2008

Should your credit union be engaging in the social web for issue management?

By Tim McAlpine

A regular reader of our blog recently tipped me off to an interesting story regarding asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) being discussed on Facebook.

A group of individual investors have formed a Facebook group to draw attention to ABCP and provide a forum to discuss ABCP and its roll in the sub-prime mortgage crisis in Canada. This has been a burning story in the Canadian press for quite awhile. For the past few months most of the coverage has focused on the institutional investors, but during April and May the spotlight turned to individuals—the mom-and-pop investors whose life savings (in some cases) got trapped in what they had been told was an investment that was as secure as a GIC.

The discussion board on the Facebook group is available only to members of the group to see, but what I can relay is how these concerned members have used this social media platform as a tool to air their grievances. And I'm not talking about Gen Y—I'm talking about older, close-to-retirement (or retired) folks. They seem quite knowledgeable about the credit union system, the provincial centrals and their relationship to investment firms that service the credit union industry.

To be frank, my knowledge and understanding about these issues is limited, so without talking over my head or getting political, I am interested in starting a discussion about the questions this type of situation raises. Here are some basic questions for you and your credit union to consider.

1. Is your credit union doing enough to keep tabs on social media for issue management purposes?
    
2. Do the available social media tools offer credit unions an opportunity to be proactive about an issue like this?
    
3. And, do those of us in the credit union world tend to be too narrow in our view of who is using social media, demographically speaking?

Over to you!

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04/04/2008

Cent-a-mental. Should we keep the penny around?

By Tim McAlpine

The Canadian penny just turned 100 and for its anniversary present, there is legislation on the table to kill it. This article in the Montreal Gazette, Making cents makes no sense at all goes into detail.

NDP MP Pat Martin introduced the legislation yesterday to stop production of the penny, phase it out of circulation and introduce a ''rounding'' system to adjust prices to the nearest nickel. "We believe at the same time we have a birthday party for the penny, we should have a funeral," Martin told a news conference yesterday.

Bitter sweet. My earliest memory of money is filling a jar full of pennies. Today, I am 100% debit and credit cards, so I guess I can't be all melancholy about the penny disappearing.
 

P.S. OK, maybe my cheesiest blog headline ever!

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01/10/2008

News alert: Kids are on the Internet!

By Tim McAlpine

A daily news alert that I receive from Canada's Marketing Magazine had an interesting article from reporter David Brown.

Video viewing up 360% at CTV youth brands They say this whole Internet thing is going to be big with the kids. Well, CTVglobemedia has some pretty good proof. Streaming video traffic to CTV’s two youth and music station websites, MTV.ca and MuchMusic.com, was up 360% in 2007 (CTV acquired MuchMusic with its takeover of CHUM last year). Kids flocked to MuchMusic’s site mostly to watch music videos from the likes of Rihanna and Avril Lavigne, while MTV delivered full episodes of shows like The Hills and Laguna Beach. In total, 120 million videos streams were viewed by nearly 19 million unique visitors on the two sites. Video streaming accounted for 80% of site activity, with visitors spending an average of 50 minutes per month viewing video content. + Read the whole artlcle here

Those crazy kids are on the Internet. Sounds like a good place for your credit union to have a presence. Who knew?

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01/09/2008

Shout Out: Great Credit Union Times article today on lack of member growth.

By Tim McAlpine

Study Indicates Community Charters Don’t Solve CU Growth Challenges

I read this article written by By Eileen Courter with interest. Mark Weber from Weber Marketing provides most of the content and he offers some terrific, straight-forward advice that credit union marketers should pay attention to.

Mark Weber says, "If good service were the secret, credit unions would be thriving in membership growth today," he continues. "Unfortunately, good service is not the bar by which people switch financial institutions. We've had seven years of the worst growth in history in credit union membership. You absolutely have to be working much, much harder than simply saying 'We have great member service' when everyone else is saying it." Weber notes that even though some 20% of credit unions now have a community charter, the vast majority are not growing. "There are two big surprises when a credit union gains a community charter," Weber says. "First, absolutely nobody is beating a path to your door. No. 2, you have to completely transform your business, operational, and sales models."

+ Take a read—more food for thought.

It all points back to the real need for your credit union to be different and desirable.

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