Amazon recently announced a new shopping experience that isn'tburdened with checkout lines. Shoppers download the Amazon Go app,scan their phone at the door and grab each item they want. Whenthey're ready to leave, they simply walk out of the store, view adigital receipt, and carry on with their day.

Amazon Go will initially launch in a single Seattle location,but knowing Jeff Bezos' vision to create “an everything store,” theretail giant is certain to expand well beyond that location.

The implications for grocery chains are obvious. They'll need toreplicate the Amazon Go experience just to keep up. After all, onceshoppers get used to skipping checkout lines, they won't go back.The experience of buying groceries is set to change forever.

What might not be as obvious are the implications for the worldof financial services.

To start, Amazon indicates that it will be able to trackindividual items that you purchase in their store — creating arecord week after week of your spending habits. Their app willtrack how often you eat their cupcakes and how much you drink theircoffee, down to the specific brands you choose.

From there the Amazon Go app could easily show your personalspending trends, offering visualizations based on the types offoods you purchase and how often you purchase them. Amazon wouldthen pair your purchase history at Amazon Go with your personalhistory at Amazon.com, creating a more unified view of yourspending habits.

Finally, it wouldn't be a major leap for Amazon to partner witha data aggregator to include outside accounts in their app as well.This way they could also include money management recommendationsright alongside their “recommended for you” tips — expanding theirsense of becoming an everything store even further and offering aone-stop app for your entire financial life.

With Amazon already heavily promoting its Visa card and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency considering fintechcharter applications, it wouldn't be surprising to see Amazonexpand its presence within fintech.

What are the implications for credit unions?

First, credit union executives must realize that just likegrocery chain owners, they'll need to find a way to offer acomparable digital experience. Without such an experience,consumers will go with the most convenient option (possibly the oneoffered by Amazon), and credit union apps will no longer have aprominent spot on their members' phones. If that happens, creditunions will lose what may be the key mode of interaction adecade from now, as branch visits continue to decline and mobileuse continues to increase. In short, the way to get ahead of thistrend is straightforward: Improve the digital experience today.

Second, credit unions will need to amplify their efforts toprovide clean, accurate data — noting that they currently havean edge on Amazon since all of a consumer's purchases runthrough their system. By making better use of the goldmine of datathey're already sitting on, credit unions will remain a step aheadof Amazon and may prevent the digital giant from gaining appdominance in their space. This shift will require painful decisionsas credit unions restructure their budgets in favor of dataprofessionals and services, but it's bound to pay off in the longrun. After all, data analytics has been a major differentiator for Amazon. Credit unions can learn fromAmazon's efforts on this front today and edge them out beforeAmazon starts carving into their space with a financial app.

If Amazon manages to be a one-stop hub for consumers' financiallives, credit unions­­­­ will become less relevant in members'lives. Better to get ahead of the curve now — beforeAmazon expands the number of their grocery stores around the nation(and beyond).

Jon Ogden is director of content at MX. He can be reachedat 801-669-5500 or [email protected].