Credit unions have become hugely popular over the last few decades for a number of reasons. For starters, they offer a more personalized and member-centric approach to financial services that a lot of larger organizations simply cannot match. They also offer safe, reliable services that members have come to depend on and even expect.

Navigating a credit union's loan application process can often feel like an arduous obstacle course. The mountains of paperwork and tedious data entry involved can lead to errors and delays. However, there is a tech-driven solution on the rise: automated loan decisioning. By leveraging specially designed algorithms, this trend aims to digitize and simplify the loan application process, reducing paperwork for credit union employees and members, saving time, and minimizing the chances of human error.

Credit unions are constantly striving to enhance their services for the benefit of their members. One valuable tool in their arsenal is the home equity line of credit (HELOC).

Building an effective cross-selling program for your credit union is essential for long-term success, as it relies on the most valuable asset of all: relationships.

Credit unions exist as a superior alternative to the cold, impersonal experience that many giant financial institutions offer.  Most consumers don't want to handle this essential aspect of their lives in such an impersonal way. They want to walk through the door and be greeted by familiar faces. They want to see people who actually know their names. They want to give their business to a place where they feel like everyone involved genuinely cares about the community.

For financial institutions in particular, one of the major reasons why cross-selling efforts often fail is because organizations go about it in exactly the wrong way.

According to a recent study, credit unions have a 60% to 70% chance of conversion when they concentrate on cross-selling to current members. However, when dealing with non-members or people without a pre-existing relationship, the chances drop to only 5% to 20%.

If it feels like cross-selling fell out of favor over the last few years, you're not imagining things. In part due to reports of big bank employees opening up new accounts without customer authorization, the use of--and reference to--the cross-selling practice practically plummeted. In fact, it was estimated that the term was only used 86 times in presentations from publicly traded banks in 2019--as opposed to the 302 times it was used in 2015.

Welcome to Part 2 of our Complete Guide to Innovative Digital Payment Options. In Part 1, we provided a brief overview of the advanced technology that underpins digital payments and explained why they are increasingly crucial for credit unions. As we mentioned earlier, comprehending the fundamental aspects of this technology and its workings is essential to seamlessly integrate it into your credit union, thus benefiting both members and the institution.

If you've ever opened the built-in "Wallet" app on your iPhone, you're no doubt at least passingly familiar with how convenient digital wallets can be. With a few taps of your finger, digital representations of all of your credit and debit cards are available and can be instantly used to make contactless purchases and other digital payments.