Tack a good mobile app onto your digital banking platform andyou have all your millennial bases covered, right? If only it werethat easy. Yes, millennials are highly mobile and have grown uprunning their lives from their smartphones. To really resonate withthe millennial crowd, however, your credit union needs tounderstand how they think – not just about life in general, butbanking in particular.

Scratch, a division of Viacom Media Networks, completed athree-year study of actual and potential industry disruption causedby millennials. While the Millennial Disruption Index spanned 15industries, the results were most telling and most startling forbanking.

The results do point to some opportunity for credit unions. Forexample, all four of the top U.S. banks were among the 10 brandsmost disliked by millennials. Also, a third of millennials wereopen to the idea of switching financial institutions in the next 90days.

On the other hand, more than half said they don't believe theirfinancial institution offers anything different than any otherfinancial institution. Nearly 70 percent said that in five years,they expect the way they access their money will be totallydifferent. About the same portion said the way they pay for thingswill be totally different, too.

Based on all of this, one could reasonably conclude that toentice millennials to make that switch mentioned earlier, yourcredit union needs to provide a new and unique member experience.That in turn requires a long-term commitment to new, potentiallydisruptive technology.

Consider the lucrative payments business. Apple Pay is thelatest and greatest. Yet it still relies on the credit cardparadigm to function. Credit card information is stored on youriPhone. You select your payment option by tapping a picture of thedesired credit card, and the transaction itself runs over thecredit card rail.

Visa and MasterCard like Apple Pay because it brings a littlenew life to their fading card-based model. However, all around us,technology companies are developing new payment models thatsidestep credit cards entirely. PayPal and its penetration intoretailers like Home Depot are probably the highest profile exampleof this. It's worth noting here that about three-quarters ofmillennials surveyed said they would be more excited about a newfinancial services offering from Google, Amazon, Apple, PayPal orSquare than from their own bank.

In the months ahead, your credit union will have more and moreoptions for mobile payments and other millennial-centric services.While it's essential for credit unions to take a global view oftechnology, it's also important to remember that most credit unionsare community financial institutions. In other words, credit unionsneed to balance how they play in the world economy with what theydo to foster and support the local economy.

All technology is interim technology – a steppingstone to thenext seemingly big thing. That's the nature of innovation. The keyis knowing precisely when to let go of the old technology andembrace the new technology. If the current trends among millennialsare any indication – and there's no reason to believe they're not –it's probably time to start loosening your grip on some of thatolder technology.