Posted by Lisa Hochgraf

OK, I admit it. I will likely soon have a credit card from Bank of America.

How I came to be expecting this card in the mail is kind of a long story, full confession below.

The important takeaways from my confession, I think, are the evidence it provides that 1) affinity cards make a difference, 2) people really do hold on to their first credit cards a long time, 3) disgruntled customers may be expensive customers, and 4) that the big banks can afford to hire really able marketers.

Posted by Lisa Hochgraf

I'm certainly not the first to say that producing podcasts might not yet be low-hanging fruit for most credit unions. Check out Tony Mannor's excellent post on CU Hype.

But a personal experience and some recent reading made me want to join the conversation about the "to podcast or not to podcast" issue.

By Thomas C. Davis

The credit union industry is an aging industry characterized by slow growth, consolidation, and commodity products and services. But an industry does not age because of slow growth or even its mature position on the growth curve. An industry ages because it quits pursuing an ideal—or, perhaps, fails to pursue its ideal in a new, meaningful way.

By Mary Arnold

I'm not the only CUESer inspired to blog about insights from Advanced Leadership Institute at Harvard Business School. If you haven't done so already, check out "There's Proof Small Credit Unions Can Thrive" by my colleague Christopher Stevenson on the CUES Nexus blog.

Posted by Christopher Stevenson

By Mary Arnold

In our final wrap-up session at Advanced Leadership Institute, Harvard Business School Professor Peter Tufano talked a little bit about "disruptive technology," a term most of us have heard before but may not have thought really applied to our own lines of business. More and more, I feel that it does.

By Steve Williams

The 2007 strategic planning season has kicked into full gear and credit unions are facing one of the most difficult industry environments in several decades. While softening credit quality, a housing slowdown and a difficult yield curve have contributed to credit union headaches, the true source of our industry's struggle is hyper-competition.

By Mary Arnold

By Mary Arnold

Posted by Lisa Hochgraf

I read this blog post recently, suggesting that consumers should call their financial institutions and opt out of all direct mail marketing offers, especially direct mail that contains promotional or convenience checks. The poster, Tom Fraglia Fragala, CEO of identity theft prevention company Truston, explained that he had twice been a victim of ID theft when such checks were stolen from his mailbox.