MADISON, Wis. — If two recent baby boomer pilot projects are any indication, credit unions may be on to something in their quest to woo this influential group.
The $333 million Mazuma Credit Union recently completed a two-month pilot to help aspiring entrepreneurs evaluate the market-worthiness of their business. Mazuma is one of four credit unions participating in the "What's the Big Idea" challenge, a Filene Research Institute's i3 innovation project.
The pilot, which started on Jan. 14 and will run until March 31, resulted in 78 new deposit accounts totaling $2.5 million opened and $1.23 million in loans approved.
Recommended For You
With hardly any marketing outside of a mention on its Web site, the $1.3 billion Wright-Patt CU, Inc. was able to bring in 27 entries in the first couple of weeks of the pilot, said Lisa Renner, CEO of CU Holding Company, a subsidiary of Mazuma and one of the members of the Filene i3 team that created the What's the Big Idea project. Since its March 4 launch, 47 new Wright-Patt accounts have opened.
So, what does Mazuma and Wright-Patt's pilot data mean? Honing in on a target market is one of the keys to wooing baby boomers or as Renner coins them "Boomer-preneurs." The positioning on a Web site is critical as is how the challenge is promoted to baby boomers.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
