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And First Entertainment Credit Union Begat CineFi.

Say what?

First Entertainment is the big show business credit union. Based in Hollywood, it has assets of around $2.1 billion and serves around 90,000 members, many of them who work in Hollywood, doing everything from acting to the skilled crafts (such as set building) that create Hollywood’s magic.

On the show is Stephen Owen, CEO of First Entertainment and he is here to tell what CineFi is, why First Entertainment birthed it, and why it is based in Atlanta, GA, some 2300 miles removed from Hollywood.

CinedFi is a digital only institution, no branches, and right now its offerings consist of checking and savings, although Owen says the plan is to augment that product slate later in 2026.

How to become a CineFi member? The FOM consists of a handful of Georgia counties, centered around Atlanta, and although the aim is to serve the large number of entertainment industry professionals who live in the Atlanta area,CineFi is open to others as well. Owen explains in the show.

Understand, CineFi does not have its own charter. Owen tells how it came into existence - and he adds that there may be CineFis opening elsewhere in the country.

Ours is an age when the creation of new credit unions is rare indeed. You can count on one hand how many were birthed in the US in 2025 and have a finger to spare.

That’s rare indeed.

So the creation of CineFi is an exciting event and it just may give CEOs and boards of other credit unions the impulse to do something similar.

How cool would that be?

Listen up.

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In mid February, Curql, the collective of 160+ credit unions, announced its first blockchain investment into Stablecore, a company that provides digital asset infrastructure for credit unions.

Literally hundreds of billions of dollars now are flowing into stablecoin, a digital currency backed by fiat currency and accordingly it has little volatility.

Big banks are pouncing on stablecoins but the credit union problem is a lack of tools for managing digital currencies. Enter Stablecore which is designed to enable credit unions to manage member portfolios of digital currencies. It’s a solution that’s needed and that’s why Curql chose to put money into Stablecore.

On the show are Nick Evens, President and CEO of Curql, and Alex Treece, CEO and co-founder of Stablecore,

Along the way, Nick offers insights into Curql’s investment strategy and Alex issues an invite to credit unions that might be interested in a pilot that he is putting together.

Sure, you are glad that you sat out Bitcoin but stablecoin is a very different entity. Now’s the time to get to know about it.

Listen up.

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Are you still relying on product based rewards for members?

Meet the new tool on the block: relationship building.

A trigger is that interchange rates are under attack and, for many financial institutions, it’s been interchange that funded the rewards programs.

So what’s the new approach? On the show is Beth McCoy, CEO of CORA Loyalty, who provides a roadmap for building member relationships that benefit both the member and the institution.

CORA Loyalty explains what it does this way: “Loyalty leaders are shifting from card-centric to relationship-focused campaigns. The approach rewards customers for activities across the institution: maintaining checking accounts, paying account fees, using credit and debit cards, transacting regularly, and long-term relationships.”

“The goal isn’t card spend, but broader and longer lasting outcomes like growing deposits, encouraging treasury management adoption, and strengthening the full banking relationship.”

Sound good?

Listen up.

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Fact: credit unions have lots of data about their members. Everything from home address to their liquidity.

Fact: credit unions, most of them, are woefully inept at mining this data to better serve those members and also to boost member retention and up cashflow into the credit union.

Enter DeepTarget, a Huntsville AL based fintech that serves 285 clients, 85% of which are credit unions and they range in size from around $25 million in assets to several billion dollars in assets.

All come to DeepTarget for its toolkit of proven tools that get results. In 2025 for instance DeepTarget tools helped its customers open 328,000 new accounts, generated $1.98 billion in new loans, and brought in $2.7 billion in new deposits.

The DeepTarget secret is how it effectively mines the data a credit union already has on hand.

That sound you hear is the CU cash register ringing.

Monthly DeepTarget fees are affordable, too, typically four figures a month.

And usually a credit union’s own staff involvement in DeepTarget campaigns is minimal, although accommodations are available for credit unions that want a more hands-on role.

In an era of generative AI all this may seem unglamorous and maybe it is. But it delivers meaningful bottomline results to credit unions.

On the show is Preetha Pulusani, the company founder and CEO.

And if you wonder how all this tech happens in Huntsville, I have one name for you Wernher von Braun. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, look it up.

Listen up

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Just when I thought credit card rewards initiatives were on the chopping block, here comes David Metz and Priizeout with an innovative twist on credit card rewards and it’s one that already is winning credit union applause. Proof is that also on the show is Sarah Vasey, Chief Operating Officer at Michigan-based United Financial Credit Union, an institution with around $350 million in assets.

Sarah herself is a credit card rewards beneficiary and she tells what she really likes about the Prizeout program. Think shoe money.

Prizeout has been on the show multiple times but that’s because it keeps innovating new offerings that credit unions adopt.

Here’s a great episode that also features Darlene Johnson of Suncoast. Link in the show notes,

Listen up.

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Do credit unions have a future? And if so what?

Meet Lamont Black, a Filene Fellow - Credit Union of the Future.

Spoiler alert: Black is optimistic about the future of credit unions.

A finance professor at DePaul University, Black also is a busy writer, speaker, consultant who focuses on innovative technologies including AI and Bitcoin and, nowadays, especially Stablecoin.

In the show Black is articulate in explaining why AI matters to credit unions and he also offers an understandable description of stablecoins and why and how credit unions should hop aboard.

Understand: the estimated volume of transactions around stablecoins in 2025 was $33 trillion. With a t, not a b. $33 trillion!

Big banks have hopped aboard stable coins, so have giant retailers - think Amazon and WalMart.

Buckle up, this show is a fast ride.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com

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Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

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Only about one third of your members feel understood by you - that’s the harsh fact that emerges from a member experience survey conducted by the Harris Poll and sponsored by White Clay, a fintech that says it helps banks and credit unions enhance customer relationships and profitability.

On the show today is Mac Thompson, CEO and founder of White Clay, to tell why members feel misunderstood and also to explain why he says credit unions should get busy implementing human-centered digital strategies in 2026.

Human centered digital? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?

Thompson explains why it isn’t self contradictory and why he believes this may be the key that unlocks greater successes for the credit unions that make it happen.

Along the way he agrees that the biggest banks - Chase, B o A and a few others - have a huge lead in implementing AI. But Thompson is also optimistic that there is a path to success for credit unions that nurture their human bonds with members.

This is a show with a lot of big thoughts. But now - with AI rolling out everywhere and seemingly changing everything - now indeed is the time for credit unions to think big.

And Thompson thinks they can.

Listen up.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com

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Today Andrea Argueta is director of financial institution advisory at Glia, a company that focuses on providing credit unions and banks digital customer service tools and nowadays that means AI. So this show’s focus is on the practical suite of tools Glia has working in some 400 credit unions, making Glia very probably the largest provider of AI tools to credit unions.

Importantly, too, Argueta knows credit unions. That’s because before coming to Glia she served as COO at Washington DC based IDB Global Federal Credit Union, an institution that serves the employees of the Inter-American Development Bank and their families and there are members in over 75 countries.

At IDB Global she was a Glia customer and eventually that evolved into her joining the Glia team.

In the show she tells about that journey and she also offers insights into what AI is really doing for credit unions today and the smart way for a credit union to join this party.

In the show mention is made of two prior appearances on the show by Glia executives, Glia CEO Dan Michaeli in 2020 and Jake Tyler a year ago.

Listen up.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com

And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.

Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto