Currency Marketing announced today that the Young & Free program is now available to credit unions across the U.S.

Interested credit unions – or in some cases, state leagues – will receive a regional license on a first-come-first-serve basis (ex: “Young & Free Wisconsin”).

Has Young & Free Alberta been successful for 52,000-member Common Wealth CU ? Here are some numbers. In eight months:

• Over 1,900 Young & Free Checking Accounts opened.
• Average account balance of $1,422 in an account that pays no interest (they were hoping for $250 per account).
• Total in market PR-value of over $200,000 (calculated from print, online, radio, and tv articles/segments, brand mentions, and impressions).

I think replicating the success of Alberta’s program will be based on three things:

• Finding the right personality to represent each region. Larissa is a jackpot of creativity and charisma, will other CUs be so lucky?
• Providing spokesters with the perfect tightrope of freedom and direction. This is a high-engagement campaign, both for consumers and involved credit unions.
• Tying in a unique product. Common Wealth’s product, a free checking account, is hugely novel in Canada because they’re one of the only FIs to offer free checking. The U.S. market will need something a little sweeter.

That said, this program has the potential to tackle the CU “national brand/awareness” issue by digging in on a grassroots level. It’ll be like dropping paratroopers of relevance throughout the U.S.

For more details, check out Tim’s announcement post from earlier today.

The Aite Group LLC reported that 33 percent of credit unions with over $100 million in assets are planning to convert to mutual savings banks. Likely these converted credit unions will ultimately become for-profit, stockholder-owned financial institutions.

One-third of this class of credit union represents $193.8 billion in assets, assuming the 33 percent of converting credit unions is spread across the 1200 representative credit unions in this class evenly. In turn that represents over a quarter (27 percent to be exact) of all credit union assets. One-quarter of the money in credit unions is on its way out the door.

In 2006, fee income exceeded return on average assets (page 4 of the 2006 report, if you’re interested) credit union-wide for the first time ever as CUs looked for ways to replace money drained away by compressed interest margins. Banks are using the same tactic.

At the same time, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus is considering starting a credit union in the U.S. There are movements of varying size and momentum, but movements nonetheless, to provide alternatives to banks through such things as peer-to-peer lending, democratically-run, socially responsible banks, and account aggregation and financial planning using social networks.

Isn’t the message credit unions preach differentiating themselves from banks now even more relevant – even hip?

So, then…why leave?

The Credit Union Innovators Podcast

Last week Tim McAlpine from Currency Marketing launched a podcast devoted to highlighting and interviewing passionate and inspirational people from the credit union movement. His first guest is Gene Blishen, the tech-and-people-savvy General Manager of Mt. Lehman Credit Union.

One of my favorite parts is Gene discussing the future of credit union survival:

The question I would first and foremost ask any board or credit union manager is “Are you relevant to your members?” and, “Do you have passion to exist?”

Word on the street is there’s talk of an interview with the CU Skeptic. Sweet conflict!

Listen to it on the web here or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes here.

Banktastic, a social network for financial institutions

In late October of last year, the Garland Group launched this social knowledge hub for financial institutions. Now don’t get in a tizzy just because of the word “Bank.” Here are a few discussions happening in Banktastic:

• What is your favorite credit union marketing campaign of all time?
• Emerging Markets and What They Could Mean for CUs
• Using Mobile Phones to Make Remote Check Deposits (which is honestly worth a blog post of its own)

The community is currently in “semi-private beta” What does that mean? “We have no idea,” says Brad Garland. But you will need an invite to join. I have a few, and I know several others do too. Post in the comments if you’d like to join, and I bet you’ll get hooked up.

Update: The Banktastic Invite Fairy hooked me up with quite a few more invites. If you want one, email me at brent [at] trabian [dot] com.

Young & Free Alberta

If you haven’t taken time to look at the best credit union social media campaign in existence (only rivaled by ChangeEverything), please go check out CommonWealth CU’s Young & Free campaign (orchestrated by the crazy Canucks at Currency Marketing).

After running a contest to find the most charismatic and expressive person under 25 in Alberta, Canada to take a year-long gig as the CUs spokesprson, they hit a goldmine with winner Larissa (see yesterday’s post).

She blogs, she makes videos, she digs up free stuff, and she positions CommonWealth as a youth-centric credit union. And the entire campaign ties to their Young & Free Checking Account.

It’s brilliant.

Tech CU’s iPhone button

Says Gabriel Garcia in a comment on Netbanker (link added):

”...I created and iPhone icon for the Tech CU Blog. One of our members had coincidentally inquired about the same thing the day before. We tested it on his iPhone and enjoys it!”

What a cool way to engage tech-savvy members (of which I have a feeling Tech CU has many) while raising awareness of their blog.

Next stop? iBanking:

(Video of German bank Postbank’s iPhone account interface. Sorry, the video is in German…but the demo speaks for itself.)

The brass|SHOW

I’ve always dug the content Gen-Y experts brass|MEDIA put out in their made-for-gen-yers magazine, brass. It’s relevant, on-point, and an entertaining read.

In early Feb, they’ll launch the brass|SHOW. brass CEO Bryan Sims described it nicely in an email:

We developed a 3-5 minute video podcast about young adults, money and real world stuff, that credit unions can license and place on their site to begin delivering updated content rather than many of the static sites that are out there.

I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with. And I’m especially looking forward to seeing how it is received by young members.

Check out an example of how the brass|SHOW could play out on a credit union site here

Did I miss something? Post other instances of CU New Media Awesomeness you’ve found in the comments.

This is a straight-up re-post from Currency Tim’s blog, but I don’t care because this video needs to be posted as many places in Credit Uniondom as possible.

Please watch 19-year old Larissa, spokesperson for Commonwealth CU’s Young & Free campaign, explain the difference between credit unions and banks.

To quote Charlie from an earlier tweet:

“Larissa’s vid is just what I have in mind when I picture a national CU vs Bank differentiation campaign.”

Question for Tim:

Would you ever consider re-editing, and re-releasing a less-Y&F-branded version for CUs to put on their own homepages, “about us” pages, and blogs?

Question for CUs:

Is this something you’d like to put in front of your members?

By this stuff, I mean this new stuff. Web 2.0. User-generated content. Social media. Whatever you want to call it.

All this stuff you live and breathe. All this stuff that continues to come in waves. All this stuff that you know is perfect for your credit union. All this stuff that you can’t explain to anyone who is not involved. All this stuff your members are doing online. All this stuff that you know is passing your credit union by.

How about the brand and name experts? No, they’re too busy helping credit unions merge to waste their time on this stuff. They’re telling credit unions, “Skip this stuff. It will pass.”

How about the ad agency? Not likely. They make their money in 30 second increments. If they can’t monetize it, forget it. They, too, are telling credit unions, “Skip this stuff. It will pass.”

How about the PR consultants? Nope. User-generated content with no editorial review is too scary for them. “We need to control this stuff.”

How about the IT department? Yeah right. They’re too busy with bank system security and making sure your in-box isn’t filled with spam. Just try to convince the techies that embedded code from a third-party website is a good thing to do. “Nope, that stuff is not touching my stuff. My job is to block stuff, not touch stuff.”

How about the young person in the organization with a knack for computers? Maybe, but this person will never have the influence or the resources to really implement this stuff. “OK old dudes, this stuff is so cool. Trust me, we really need this stuff.”

How about your marketing and communications department? They would be the natural fit, but with a steady flow of branch requests and with the production of your ingrained annual sales promotions, time and resources are spread too thin. “We’d love to help, but we just don’t have time to do this stuff.”

How about the digital agency or the web consultancy? Possibly. They are definitely capable of doing whatever your credit union wants to do. But they can’t go it alone. “OK, before we do anything, we want to make sure you guys understand this stuff and are comfortable with us doing all of this stuff.”

How about hiring an expert on staff? Good idea. But you better be prepared to listen and give him or her the freedom to experiment or he or she will get frustrated and leave. “I have been telling you about this stuff for months now, but you all still don’t get this stuff. I’m packing my stuff and leaving.”

So, who’s left? Your senior management and, especially, your CEO. Until credit union CEOs and the senior executive team are actually involved in this stuff, it’s not going as far as I know it can go to propel the credit union movement forward.

CEOs and the senior executive team need to feel the anxiety of not being able to see what their Twitter crew is up to while on a flight. CEOs and the senior executive team need to feel the exhilaration of receiving a slew of comments on a controversial blog post that they just posted. CEOs and the senior executive team need to understand the power of this new form of community firsthand. It cannot be explained. It must be experienced.

And CEOs and the senior executive team need to be seen participating in social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn by staff and members. CEOs and the senior executive team need to give permission to experiment and innovate.

As it stands, credit union CEOs and the senior executive team are out of the loop. They see all of this stuff as a waste of time and energy. But guess what, this stuff is real, this stuff is happening right under their nose and this stuff is not going away any time soon, if ever.

Signing off on a message from the president that you didn’t write for your credit union’s quarterly newsletter is not a two-way conversation. Not even close.

Two questions for you:

1. Who owns this stuff at your credit union?
2. What can we all do to prove this stuff is worth doing?

Tim McAlpine is the President & Chief Strategist of Currency Marketing. You can read Tim’s ‘stuff’ on the Currency Marketing blog at www.currencymarketing.ca/blog.

In a session on reaching the 18 – 30 year old Hispanics”, Reverend Ed Gomez of El Buen Samaritano Epsicopal Mission said the best way to build trust, engage, and serve the Hispanic culture, and I would argue any culture, is to get outside of our own heads – both when we communicate and design products.

In a quote I swiped from the YES Summit blog, Ed said Wells Fargo did this…

...because it hired Hispanic staff, including management, and engaged the market by participating in local community events. It made its presence felt on the personal basis and used the relationships it built with community leaders to design products specifically suited to people who operate outside the majority economy.

Wright-Patt CU wanted to be more relevant to young adults, so they hired 23 year-old Dustin Limburg on as Marketing Representative for Young Adults. When I asked him how they are approaching the market, Dustin said, “We basically look at them like a separate SEG.”

How are you getting outside of your head and speaking the cultural language?

This morning we had the opportunity to hang out with some Gen-Yers and talk about how they bank, save, and plan for the future. Here’s a snapshot (note: because they didn’t speak in html code, I added the links) -

Marsha

...is a 23 year-old University of Texas student and Starbucks Barista. She says:

My debt is in student loans and credit cards. After I graduate, I’m going to law school. When it’s all done, I expect to have $200,000 in student loans. It could take until I’m 45 to pay them off.

I bank with a credit union, and do all of my banking online. All of my loans are through Wells Fargo and Sallie Mae, but if my credit union had private loans I’d use them.

I go to my mom for financial advice. There is so much clutter on my credit union’s homepage that even if they had financial advice I still wouldn’t read it.

Do I think about retirement? Well, I know I want to go to France and I want to write a book.

Aaron

...is a 24-year old developer for St. Edwards University. He says:

I do all my banking online. I use ING for everything. I used to use a credit union because my parents were members. But I dropped them when they killed their mobile banking.

ING’s Orange Checking account makes me more aware of how I pay my bills because I’m getting a yield. It helps me save and probably helps me pay on time.

Elysa

...is a 19 year-old University of Texas student. She says:

I probably wouldn’t go to a financial literacy seminar put on by a credit union or bank, but I’d listen to a speaker invited by my sorority.

I’m a business student, and plan on learning about investing through classes at school.

I have no debt, I was always told to pay my credit cards in full (my dad is financial advisor).