Overcoming CUs’ constraints for fintech CUSOs
By the end of the 2010s, adoption of digital fintech was relatively slow but steady, if a bit apprehensive. Credit union constraints and doubts remained common and unsure whether to view the emerging industry as friend or foe, supportive partner or upstart competition.
Well, many of those worries have largely evaporated by early 2023 due to the difference they made when members needed them most during the pandemic. For those who experienced heightened financial distress and waited weeks for stimulus payments to arrive, mobile access to affordable small-dollar loans like those provided by QCash became a lifeline for both credit unions and their members in weathering the worst economic effects.
In fact, at the outset of the pandemic in March 2020, already 32 percent of families who employed small-dollar loans used them for unexpected expenses, and another 32 percent used them for temporary income shortfalls. Once again, when a national crisis (or in this case, worldwide crisis) was at our doorstep, the credit union difference was there for members.
The best starting point for partnering with a fintech CUSO provider is to discuss the potential partnership with your staff and membership while addressing their return questions and comments. Oftentimes, the fear, apprehension, and “unknown” of the experience is not the partnership itself. It’s the foreboding uncertainty of what it entails to onboard the platform itself.
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