In an organization whose values start with belonging, we relish our quirks. One of mine is my disdain for piggy banks in credit union marketing. We have other metaphors at our disposal that elevate our story. My opinion is well known to those who work closely with me, and one day during my tenure at Canvas Credit Union, the team loaded my office with leftover logoed piggy banks. I appreciate a good prank.
Despite my belief that they should not be leveraged to share our story as an industry, I did grow up with a piggy bank. I still have it. In fact, in my formative years, birthday money or coins I found on Hillsdale’s sidewalks landed in that unsafe vault. On the other hand, my daughter MacKenzie has never used cash unless it came from one of her grandparents. When I first began assigning her chores and agreed to an allowance, I quickly found Greenlight because I felt tremendous guilt every week when she asked for her allowance, and I never had the cash. She’s had a debit card and an app allowing her to “spend, save, and give” since she was nine years old. Not only is she learning foundational financial habits, but her payment experience will never include cash or checks. Unless I worked for a credit union, she would not understand the words “checking account.”
This shift in payments, like many current trends, unfolded rapidly. For decades, electronic payments have transformed the commerce landscape, painting every transaction with the brushstrokes of convenience and innovation. Gone are the days of cash being queen. Today, a mere tap or click suffices to complete transactions from mundane everyday expenses to those special purchases that may very well represent an impossible dream or two.
This evolution began with credit cards, which Bank of America first sent to a few customers in California in 1958. In 1966, they released the famous BankAmericard, which eventually became VISA. In a short period of time, consumers gained purchasing power that fueled our economy and taught wallets to hold less yet carry more. By 1974, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act ensured that women could apply for a credit card in their own name by making it illegal to discriminate against an applicant based on gender (yes, that was just 50 years ago). More about the fascinating history of credit cards can be found in this Forbes 2021 article.
Today, electronic payments are more than a method. They are a movement. They connect crafters on Etsy to buyers and concertgoers with the latest merch to re-live the memories of epic summer evenings. They empower donations at the pace of a heartbeat, supporting causes with local and global footprints. They are an intrinsic part of what it means to be a 21st-century human. This progression to holding our financial identities in the cloud allows us to go from one purchase to another, making way for platforms like PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, and many others to emerge. Keeping an eye on these players keeps me up at night. Ron Shevlin coined the phrase “paycheck motels,” noting that these tools are places where funds spend time temporarily, with transactions so seamless that they conclude before the echo of a tap fades.
The natural evolution of electronic payments led to the demand for even more speed. As the May 2, 2024, article, “Are Real-Time Payments Near an Inflection Point? Bank of America Thinks So” by PYMNTS points out, there are a host of use cases and consumer demands for faster payments including access to earned wages, businesses paying suppliers more rapidly, insurance disbursements, and much more. People want more access, and they want it now. This demand will only accelerate with the next generation of members.
In a space with this much change, credit unions risk irrelevancy even if we remove the piggy banks from our marketing. With strategy and exceptional partners, we have reason to hold our hope close. Credit union executives seeking relevancy for our cooperative system must look at what the future of the human experience of payments holds beyond 2024. Although there are many trends worth paying attention to, here are my top four:
In a world where the MacKenzie’s of the world start their lives with apps and debit cards, McKinsey’s “On the cusp of the next payments era: Future opportunities for banks” points to a few emerging opportunities to consider:
For our credit union members, transactions transcend mere monetary transfers. Embracing the new wave of innovation in payments is not just a new way to transact. Payments are one of the more embedded connection points with our members and can engage our members with our brand more than any other touch point. Done well and with the right partners, payments can ignite loyalty, grow “stickiness” to the organization, and drive revenue. It’s time to smash our piggy banks and advance our payment strategy as a driver of our core business.
