Fintechs Are the Future for Credit Unions Bold Enough to Engage

Fintech partnerships can benefit CUs.

As the aphorism goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Well, in the age of fintechs like Stripe, SoFi and Robin Hood, credit unions have been doing the same thing repeatedly, and it’s not working. We must change what we do if we want a different result. At a recent meeting, the assembled owners of MEMBERS Development Company were discussing the basic technology services credit unions purchase to serve their members, and John Carew of Georgia’s Own Credit Union put it best when he said, “Our solutions don’t meet our needs, our competition is innovating with fintechs, and our members are going to go to them if we don’t do the same.”

Faced with this unavoidable truth, simply soldiering on as we always have will only result in failing to meet member expectations and an overall loss of relevancy. And it would also be ridiculous to expect anything else.