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Credit Union Times

AUGUS T 23, 2017 | VOL. 28 | NO. 29 | CUTIMES.COM

Competitive
Rift Divides
CUs
PETER STROZNIAK

pstrozniak@cutimes.com

or the good of the credit union movement, many cooperatives say they collaborate and cooperate with other credit unions.

But it’s a far different story for credit unions that are competitors in a crowded metropolitan market such as Tampa, Fla. The midsize city with a population of about 377,000 has nearly 50 local and out-of-state commercial banks, eight out-of-town credit unions and a dozen credit unions that are headquartered there.

Competitive pressures have apparently forced a fierce rift between $2.3 billion Grow Financial Federal Credit Union and the $1.8 billion GTE Federal Credit Union, which is playing out in a federal lawsuit that involves serious accusations of unauthorized access to confidential and proprietary information and disclosures of trade secrets. What’s more, legal experts, who weighed in on this case after reviewing its court filings, say all too often businesses don’t do enough to protect their confidential information and offered their insights on what credit unions should do to protect themselves.

In a lawsuit filed in May in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Grow is accusing a former credit union employee of jumping ship

MANAGEMENT

Y18

FINANCE

Advisors Getting Younger The financial advice industry is getting younger, according to the 2017 FA Insight Study of Advisory Firms: People & Pay.

The report from TD Ameritrade Institutional, which acquired FA Insight in 2016, draws on data received from 388 financial advisory firms. It finds that the median age of lead advisors has slipped by three years to 47 since 2015.

The study also finds that the median years of experience for an advisor has also declined, to 18 years from 20 years in 2015.

Vanessa Oligino, director of business performance solutions at TD Ameritrade Institutional, attributes this to the fact that more firms are hiring recent college graduates to fill client-facing and revenue-generating roles.

“We think what we’re starting to see is advisors starting to invest in that next generation of talent,” she said.

Good News for Recent
College Grads

According to the study, 31% of firms are targeting recent college graduates for revenue-generating roles.

“These things together are pointing to what we think is hopefully a positive trend,” she said. “Where after all these years of talking about the talent shortage and you need to start thinking about the next generation, [advisors] are starting to move in that direction now.” Y16 Must Reads

Editor’s note: This is the last in a three-part series about how same-say ACH is affecting credit unions.

ame-day ACH’s three-
phase rollout may be
speeding up payments
in the financial eco-
system, but the jury’s still out on
whether some of that progress
will come at the expense of one
well-known credit union product:
Bill pay. Some say same-day ACH
attracts mostly business users
and can peacefully co-exist with
bill pay; others wonder whether
same-day ACH’s similar end game
(quick, cheap funds movement)
will water down bill pay’s reach
with members.

The answer may not arrive until
after Sept. 15. That’s when Phase
II of same-day ACH’s three-phase
implementation plan kicks off, re-
quiring credit unions to provide
same-day ACH debit capabilities.
That will allow a wide variety of
consumer uses cases, such as util-
ity, mortgage, loan and credit card
payments, according to NACHA
— The Electronic Payments Asso-
ciation. Phase I, which took effect
on Sept. 23, 2016, increased the
movement of funds between fi-
nancial institutions to three times
per day and required all receiving
depository financial institutions
to accept same-day transactions.
On March 16, 2018, Phase
PAYMENTS

Same-Day ACH, Bill Pay: Who Wins?

TINA OREM torem@cutimes.com

Y17

FOCUSREPORT: CYBERSECURITY

The dark web holds an endless amount of stolen, personally identifiable information, and fraudsters are willing to pay for complete profiles in order to commit their crimes. Learn how to keep your members’ data out of the bad guys’ virtual shopping carts in this Focus Report. Y6