By Frank J. Diekmann
You’re busy. I get that. It’s hard to keep up with everything that’s going on in the world or even the world of credit unions. At CUToday.info, we consider it our duty to keep you informed of not just the major developments, but the entertaining and the odd. Especially the latter. So here you go:
The Not-So-Fine Print
We hear often about big banks changing credit card terms once they have a customer enrolled in their awards programs. But there are changes, and there is this…
Following a letter from Delta Airlines to me that began, “Thank you for being a Platinum Medallion Member and for your continued loyalty…” And then it just slipped this right in, “…We want you to be aware that starting January 1st, 2018, the Medallion Qualification Dollar (MQD) Waiver for Diamond Medallion Status is increasing. The MQD Waiver for Diamond is currently earned by spending $25,000. It is being adjusted to $250,000 in a calendar year.” Just your everyday 10x increase. On the other hand, if this change does anything to change the fact every Delta flyer is a premium flyer (the most exclusive club on Delta is passengers who are NOT in the exclusive club), I’m all for it.
Whatever Became of Seniors’ Clubs?
You can fill in your own story here following this actual news report Headline of the week: “Credit Union Senior Hurling Is Back”
Competitive Threats are Oh-So-Yesteryear
Mark Sievewright, the former Fiserv Credit Union Solutions president who now leads his own firm and who is a frequent (and very good) speaker at credit union events, offered this observation during the recent Heartland CU Association annual meeting: “It’s now the 10th anniversary of Walmart filing for a banking license. At that time everyone said, ‘We’ve got to stop this!’ Now PayPal, Amazon, Facebook have all visited the regulators to discuss a banking license, and nobody seems to care. What a difference 10 years makes.”
You Know What? I’ll Get Out Here
Speaking of Mr. Sievewright, I mistakenly grabbed a cab that was waiting for him at a hotel hosting the Heartland CU Association meeting, where I had spoken, as well. But perhaps it wasn’t a mistake, and he let me have it intentionally. I say that because as we’re driving to the airport the cab driver expresses his unhappiness over the job, even though he had only been a cab driver for about a month. “What did you do before that?” I asked. And he answered, “I was locked up for 16 and a half years.” Oh. He turned out to be a nice guy, but then, that’s also how those Dateline NBC episodes start out.
What’s Stickier Than Sticky?
Everybody seems to be stuck on “stickiness.” But there’s stickiness, and then there’s a whole new level of dried tree sap above that: obsessive.
We’ve all heard the consultants and read the blogs and heard the meeting speakers who can’t consult, write and speak enough about the importance of creating relationships that are so “sticky” members can’t leave.
It was hard not to think of all of that when reading through Malauzai Software’s latest Monkey Insights “little-data” report, which always has some interesting (or maybe I should say disturbing) nuggets around consumer behavior and mobile banking. One finding has been consistent—the average smartphone user logs into his or her online financial account 18 times every month on average (desktop users seem to be less worried about their finances, logging in an average 8.5 time every month).
But here’s where the Monkey Insights turn stickiness into Gorilla Glue. The survey found that credit unions that allow consumers to check balances without performing a traditional login (ID and password), have end-users who are engaged 37 times in a month, or on average more than once a day.
Am just guessing those sticky relationships aren’t the high-balance members.
So, Put Together That Playlist Very, Very Carefully
Observed by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, during the recent Money 2020 Conference in Las Vegas: the cost for technology to store a single song once was more than $1 million.
Where Companies are Swiping Right
Futurist and author Anders Sorman-Nillson keynoted an opening session at the Northwest CU Association’s MAXX Conference in Spokane, Wash. You can find coverage of his remarks here. But some other observations that you won’t find in CUToday.info’s other reports include these:
- At Sloan Kettering, more doctors and nurses trust IBM’s Watson over other doctors’ cancer diagnoses.
- “Fifty-percent of jobs are up for ‘robotization’ over the next 15 years. Companies are swiping left on human intelligence and swiping right on AI.”
- Sorman-Nillson said every credit union should be asking itself, “How would a Millennial rate you on your digital customer service?”
- “In the U.K., it is said you are more likely to divorce your life partner than you are to divorce your bank. But in a digital age and with fintechs, you don’t need to divorce your credit union; we just cheat on them.”
- With another conference agenda full of talk about the digital transformation, Sorman-Nillson drew more than a little resigned laughter when he asked, “How many of you wish you could just retire before you have to learn any of this shit?”
- Sorman-Nillson gave credit to Douglas Adams for this observation: “Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things.”
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info. He can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info or @FrankCUToday.