SAN FRANCISCO - If credit unions are to serve the next generation of members, they had better have a compelling Internet presence and be technologically savvy - or else they might as well close up shop, according to a marketing consultant. "The Web is moving so fast that in the face of this juggernaut, in terms of how fast it's changing and how fast it's expanding through society, it means you simply have to `webify' your credit union or you'll disappear," said Frank Feather, president of Global Marketing Consultants. "I absolutely guarantee it because the next generation of members will not interact with you in the way members have interacted (with you) in the past." Feather's message was delivered during WesCorp's Economic Forum 2000 and Annual Meeting held here April 16-18. He was one of two speakers who addressed Internet issues. The other speaker, Chuck Martin, chairman and chief executive officer of Net Future Institute, discussed the role of e-business, which he said would be driven in the future not by business but by the consumer. "This has incredible implications for every industry, every profession and anyone doing business virtually anywhere on the planet," Martin said. "The point is we have to rethink virtually everything in business and how we do pretty much everything." Feather warned credit union officials that their membership base "was changing before your eyes" and would continue to change. The next generation of members, he said, will have been raised with computers and will expect credit unions to be able to provide electronic access - and more. "People would much rather be on-line interacting in real time than standing in line," he said. "There's a big change going on in the way people lead their lives and the technology that they're using," Feather said, adding that a new computer was switched on for the first time somewhere in the world every second, 24 hours a day. "The Internet is still a baby," he noted. "It's barely learned to crawl. It's moving so fast that indeed it's the future. The Internet is the future." Citing the growth of automated teller machines, he said that in 1996 ATMs accounted for more than 50% of transactions at banks in the United States. In less than 20 years, he predicted, they will have captured the other 50% of transactions, eliminating the need for tellers at banks and credit unions. He said a similar situation will happen with computer access. "The Web takes financial transactions out of the banks and credit unions just like the ATMs before," he said. "There's no difference. We've been there before. "E-commerce is not something that's down the road," he added. "It's happening now. It's happening in financial services." In the next few years, Feather predicted that e-commerce would be replaced by mobile commerce, with consumers able to handle financial and other transactions, including downloading cash, via their cellular telephones. Feather offered a variety of suggestions for credit unions, ranging from becoming Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for their members, giving away cell phones or providing cell phone access to account information and reinventing themselves to better serve their members. "Why can't credit unions be more like Starbucks?" he asked, suggesting that the financial institutions consider "nice cozy booths" where members could sit down and discuss their financial affairs with tellers who had become "financial services officers." "This (technology) revolution changes the way you need to think about the business that you're in," Feather said. "You're not in the money business. You're in the business of information about money. The money, the transactions, are incidental." Martin, speaking at session earlier the same day, touched on a similar theme. Using on-line book seller amazon.com as an example, he noted that the company "isn't about selling books. Amazon is about changing how people buy. "What we're going through here is a change in behavior," he said. "It's a change in behavior in society of everybody in the world. That's what this is all about. It's not about technology. It's really about changing habits and changing what people are actually going to do and how they're going to do it." Martin also said the Web was no longer about selling goods and services on-line. "That's trivial," he insisted. "Selling stuff on the Web is a failed strategy. That is not what business is all about in this environment. It's about transforming how you do virtually everything - how you integrate with your members - how you do everything all the way back that really matters." Feather said credit unions needed to develop a Web site strategy which "must drive the entire strategy of the institution, not the other way around." "The CEO is not just the chief executive officer of your credit union," he said. "The CEO must be the chief e-commerce officer of your credit union." The challenge facing credit unions was in figuring out how to become an e-commerce membership organization, he said. "How do we marshal this Internet juggernaut in the interests of our members rather than being swept aside by it?" he asked. Feather recommended that credit unions offer high-tech and high-touch services for their members by becoming a "brick and click highway." "Concentrate more on the clicks than the bricks," he advised, noting that "the bricks need retrofitting." -
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