Growing expectations and nontraditional competitors requires credit unions to think creatively. The Filene Research Institute tries to spur innovation to help credit unions generate loans, mobilize savings, and reinforce membership.

Since 1989, Madison, Wis.-based Filene has engaged leading scholars and thinkers to delve into the managerial problems, public policy questions, and needs affecting the consumer finance industry. “Everything we do is designed to help credit unions understand how they can better meet the needs of members and how to be more competitive,” Andrew Downin, managing director of research at the Filene Institute, said.

“Our work can only be as good as the input and involvement from credit unions,” Downin said.

Filene and The Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine recently launched a research hub at UCI focused to study how emerging technologies influences credit union business practices and clients.

“They've done a lot of work around how financial services organizations can really tap into technology and sort through the hype,” Downin said. A report coming out of the IMTFI center later this year studies drivers of financial technology change, as well as consumer adoption. It will include recommendations to help credit union leaders make wiser decisions.

“We are delighted to partner with Filene to explore how credit unions can leverage trends in mobile banking and other technological interventions,” IMTFI Director Bill Maurer, dean of UCI's School of Social Sciences, said. “The IMTFI has established itself as the premier research center on the impact of financial technology, fintech, on people's personal and commercial banking practices, and we look forward to helping credit unions continue to create opportunities that meet the demands of changing consumer behavior.”

Another way Filene encourages credit union technological change is through its i3 innovation program. More than 200 credit union leaders from the U.S. and Canada participate through virtual discussions, collaborative fieldwork and self-study to create possible solutions. The innovation program then identifies several concepts with the most promise, and moves them into the Filene incubator.

“The i3 program continues to move forward with strength and a lot of participation across the credit union industry,” Downin emphasized. Currently, Filene has a catalogue of 200-plus ideas that came out of i3 over the last dozen years. However, very few of these ideas are in use at credit unions or commercially successful.

“A big part of i3 is centered on design process and really teaching credit union executives to put themselves in their members' perspectives,” Ryan Foss, then new managing director, innovation, at Filene.

Read more about the Filene Research Institute in the April 26, 2017 print issue of CU Times.

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