Filene is testing the following five programs as part of the Reaching Minority Households incubator:

Data Mined Auto Loans, developed with the National Credit Union Foundation, helps identify minority members with either a high-rate auto loan or no auto loan at all.
Community Microfinance Small Business Lending from the $4 billion, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada-based Alterna Savings and Credit Union, pairs loans with financial education and promotion of businesses via community boards in credit union branches.
The Non-Citizen Lending Program from the $93 million, Portland, Ore.-based Point West Credit Union, offers a variety of lending products, including credit cards, personal loans and vehicle loans, to non-citizens at the same rates as traditional consumer lending products. From 2008 to 2015, the program provided $2.1 million in loans to non-citizen borrowers.
Payday Payoff Installment Loans, developed by the $3.8 billion, Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based Kinecta Federal Credit Union and Nix Neighborhood Lending, provides affordable and responsible loans for underserved communities using an alternative data underwriting model. Borrowers can consolidate up to $2,500 of high-cost debt into an affordable installment loan.
QCash, launched in 2004 by the $2.4 billion, Olympia, Wash.-based Washington State Employees Credit Union, is designed to meet the short-term lending needs of members requesting large money orders to pay off payday lenders. QCash offers relationship-based underwriting to members without a credit check. When using QCash, an omnichannel solution, members can get funding in less than 60 seconds using a smartphone.

Overall, Downin said he believes there are cultural barriers at many credit unions preventing them from being more innovative, beginning with an aversion to failure. Other credit unions waste time, money and resources trying to build a perfect product instead of creating a prototype quickly and testing it with a focus group. Another innovation barrier is overconfidence, he said.

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New Ideas Key to Beating Nonbank Competitors

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