Credit unions and community banks are dealing with a lot - technical debt, increased competitive pressure, regulatory changes and an aging customer base. Here is why they should prioritize digital wealth management.
- It's important to your customers because they are doing it - just like credit cards were once the preserve of the already rich but now even kids have them (Greenlight). Investing has become a mass market activity especially amongst GenZ and Millennials. If you are not offering products that customers seek what are you doing?
- It's important to the long term financial wellness (resilience) of your customers - no one ever got rich from investing in a savings account. Technology has made investing accessible to almost anyone - democratizing a once exclusive engine of long term wealth creation for all.
- Drives more digital engagement - how often do your customers check their bank balance? not that often, its pretty predictable on the whole. Banks and Credit Unions pay a great deal to enable their customers to access online banking. Why not maximize the ROI of that. Investing allows consumers to participate in a global and highly dynamic economy - its inherently more interesting than a deposit balance and drives usage of your online banking.
- Retain existing deposits, grow new ones - CD's, that staple of most Community FI's have less than a third of the assets of Money Market Funds and they are not growing as fast. Consumers are moving their deposits to access both banking and investment services from providers like Robinhood.
- Drive non deposit interest revenue - diversification and new revenue streams drive long term sustainable growth.
- Meet your Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) obligations - personal finance and investing content, education and facilitation will help you meet your CRA requirements.
It's also a very easy, fast and low cost feature to add - providing your online banking provider has integrated with Unifimoney. Currently this includes Alkami TechnologyQ2 and Jack Henry (Banno) with more in process.
Unifimoney is a turnkey digital wealth management solution enabling Community FI's to compete with Fintechs and Big Brand Banks at speed, with no technical integration and low cost. We are owned by a large family office backed investment firm Palm Ventures. If you would like to speak to us please reach out or visit our website.
