You'll quickly find out Mark and Rodney go way back and talk about the old days. What is a corporate credit union these days, and how can it help credit unions in today's marketplace? Rodney takes a deep dive into this topic today.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• (01:40) Rodney shares his professional journey both in landscaping and the credit union space
• (05:08) Rodney defines a corporate credit union
• (09:47) Discussion of  Mid Atlantic Corporate evolving into Vizo Financial and the business lines offered
• (14:04) AI service launched to assist credit unions identify and use their data effectively 
• (18:54) Education and webinars provided and following current rules for credit unions
• (24:35) Who are the most successful clients at Vizo

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

• Corporate credit unions, which began in the 1970s and 1980s as liquidity providers for credit unions, have evolved to offer a wide range of financial services, including ACH, wire services, and fraud prevention. The sector has consolidated over the years, focusing on building economies of scale and offering more competitive services.
• The primary services provided by corporate credit unions today include competitive overnight investment accounts, ACH, wires, bill pay, and fraud prevention. Additionally, services like real-time payments (FedNow) and cyber security have become increasingly important, with a growing focus on helping credit unions protect against fraud and manage risk.
• A successful relationship with a corporate credit union is built on regular, open communication. Credit unions should utilize corporate services for their excess liquidity and reach out when new needs arise. The goal is to maintain constant engagement, ensuring both parties stay relevant and that credit unions maximize the benefits of available services.

RESOURCE LINKS

Mark Ritter - Website

Mark Ritter - LinkedIn

Vizo Financial - Website

BIOGRAPHY: 

Rodney May is the Chief Engagement Officer of the $4 billion Vizo Financial. His primary focus is directing all business development functions including marketing, investment sales, product sales, call center, back-office services, correspondent service implementation, core system support/implementation and member services.

CUC-Ep. 77 - Talking Corporates With Rodney May of Vizo-Transcript

Mark Ritter: Hello, this is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union Conversations and the CEO of MBFS. I hope you enjoy listening to the podcast and please, please subscribe on your favorite audio platform. So it comes in your feed when you're going, uh, to work or you're at the gym or you're mowing the grass or we're going for a walk or wherever you like to listen to your favorite audio shows.

I do this show for education. It's fun for me. It's nice to connect with guests and hopefully, uh, everybody comes away with, uh, a little bit smarter or some, uh, things to think about for their own business. So today's show will be pretty light lifting for me. Uh, it's an old friend of mine. We go way back and, uh, could probably talk for hours, but we're going to try to keep it to about 25 minutes so you don't hang up on us.

So joining me today is Rodney May of Vizzo Financial Corporate Credit Union. Rodney, how you doing?

Rodney May of Vizo: I'm doing great. Thanks, Mark. And I was thinking the same thing. I sure hope I can keep everything on task here as we talk. So

Mark Ritter: yes, well, I'll have to cut you off if we go too long. So thank you for spending some time today joining us.

Okay.

Rodney May of Vizo: Oh, sounds good. Yeah. As you alluded to a born and raised on a, a livestock farm actually in South Central PA count a town called Dillsburg. So I live out in the middle of nowhere. I love life. I love it that way. Uh, and, uh, from there, I just, uh, you know, had a strong interest in just. I knew I did not want to be in the farm business moving forward.

However, I knew I'd have to leave central PA to do that, and I knew I didn't want to do that. Um, so from there, I went to Penn State, uh, got my degree at Penn State. And, uh, that's, that's where the whole corporate. Uh, credit union thing started. I actually did an internship at the old Mid Atlantic corporate, currently Vizzo, uh, my senior year in college.

So it was an unpaid intern. So they took full advantage of my skills or lack of skills. And,

Mark Ritter: and your ability to work for your willingness to work for free.

Rodney May of Vizo: Yeah, absolutely. That was the key thing. You know, that was a key for the job. That, that was that pretty much whenever I, uh, I told him I don't need paid.

I was hired. So it was perfect. So yeah. And then, like I said, I never, I didn't know what a credit union was at that point. I didn't know what a corporate was, none of that stuff. However, um, I quickly learned that I liked what I was doing. I liked the people I was actually working with. I could stay in, uh, the central Pennsylvania area and, uh, learn and grow from there.

Not only just from the credit union's perspective, from a family perspective, personally, and how I really got to know you, my brother and I own a tree and shrub nursery. 30 years in going, uh, with the nursery. So, uh, it's been pretty cool how I can parlay a lot of things in life and love every aspect of it.

So, you know, one day I'm out in the middle getting dirty and muddy. The next day I'm talking about, you know, a million dollar investments, things of that nature. So it's, it's pretty cool how everything comes to play.

Mark Ritter: And for those listeners, if you're driving on route 15 in Dillsburg, stop by and mention the show and Rodney will give you 10 percent off.

Mark Ritter: all right. And, and what is your current role in title and areas of responsibility at Visno today?

Rodney May of Vizo: Yep. Yep. Currently I'm the senior vice president, chief engagement officer. And so that basically oversees the, uh, corporate account managers, our business development reps and our marketing area.

And then it also includes the member service area, which is our call center. Um, our product managers and our implementation team, that's credit union sign up for services. They need to have the services implemented. I oversee that area. And then also just to tie in and make it. So it just makes even more sense.

I also have the EFT group, which includes ACH and wires as well. So it's a, it's a vast array of things. However, everything I just mentioned. interacts with, uh, credit union staff on a daily basis. So it's pretty much the true engagement of the corporate with our member credit unions.

So kind of roll it back for some of our people who may not know What the heck a corporate credit union is?

Rodney May of Vizo: Yeah, most corporate credit unions actually were charted in the 70s and the 80s and they came out of necessity. Um, Natural person credit unions had a need for liquidity. They couldn't borrow anywhere so they actually formed this next tier or a next level whereas um, Credit unions corporate credit unions would come together credit unions would come together to actually Put their funds together.

If there was another credit union need to borrow it. They would actually pull from these funds So that was the original intent of a corporate credit union to be a liquidity provider for credit unions And as I alluded to most of them were chartered in the 70s in the early 80s There was typically one corporate in every state.

And then, uh, more like the mid to late eighties is when corporate credit unions really started getting involved in the payment side of things, uh, for business financial or mid Atlantic at the time. We CEO that had a strong payments background at the federal reserve. So that's when we started adding ACH services, wire services, share draft services, things of that nature.

Um, right now there's 11, uh, in the entire country. Um, however, what really was a game changer was in the late nineties when, uh. The NCOA opened it up where there was basically national fields of membership. So instead of Mid Atlantic at the time, just, uh, having credit unions in Pennsylvania, we could now go anywhere we wanted to.

And it's like a lot of credit unions run into to get to community charter. Just because you can do it, how good are you at doing it? And unfortunately for us, we got really good at it fairly quickly. And, uh, so that was definitely game changing. Um, so we've always been able to maintain thousands of credit unions.

But it doesn't work out logistically, and we've been on kind of a similar path as, as, as industries, uh, with the consolidation and building scale and providing better services. And, you know, if you just want it to be that small QSO that serves a couple of credit unions and maybe a portion of a state or a single state, well, eventually that sort of with it withers down, uh, and, and it's the same on the QSO for corporates.

Tell a little bit about the, you know, you worked for Mid Atlantic Corporate Credit Union and now you work for Vizzo Financial. Kind of give a little bit of the evolution and how that came to be.

Rodney May of Vizo: Yeah, sure thing. Yep. Yep. As uh, uh, Mid Atlantic was originally, was originally chartered just for Pennsylvania.

Uh, out of North Carolina, and I wanted to say into because we actually took at that point. We took over the Carolinas, uh, their, their charter and became a state charter corporate credit union. So the mid Atlantic charter went away in 2016. We, we picked up the, uh, the first Carolina corporate, uh, charter.

And then from there, that's just whenever, you know, that's what we've been the last seven, eight years. And it all does come down to economies of scale that, that last merger. Well, was it necessary? Maybe not. However, what it did was it just helped to expand our deposit base and for a corporate credit union, um, not a lot of credit unions are in a borrowing point.

We're pretty much in every state. About 70 percent of those credit unions actually have purchased capital with, uh, the corporate. So they're actually truly. Remember owners of us and then the other credit unions, we essentially do just services for them where they do not actually maintain a deposit account with us.

However, we utilize, um, the volumes they bring from the payment side to help drive, drive down the cost for our existing members. So, uh, it's a pretty good setup. We've been very successful as far as in the past partnering with other corporate credit unions and some services that we provide. So once again, it goes back to that.

whole economies of scale thing that we talked about. You got to have the volumes. And most importantly, um, in order to get those volumes, you got to have credit unions that are going to actually utilize you as well. So you can have a bunch of members, but if they don't use you, it really doesn't do much when it comes to the cost.

Mark Ritter: So the business model has changed over time quite a bit and evolved. What are the main lines of business today where you would say this is, you know, how we connect with corporate credit unions?

You know, everybody has some minor, but what are the main? Main business lines out there

Rodney May of Vizo: are number one driving for service is basically our overnight investment accounts that we actually offer. We're very, very competitive. We actually pay over what the fed pays. So if you're a credit union or not utilizing that, um, you're missing out for sure.

And then from there, you still have your staple items. You know, you need to be offering ACH, uh, wires, member share address, bill pay, all the settlement options. However, what we're seeing, uh, a lot more in the past years is Things focused around cyber security, um, so we're trying to help credit unions out when it comes to that fraud prevention, various types of services and products, uh, social engineering, things centered around that to help credit unions out from that perspective.

And I'm going to say, uh, instant payments is caught on, uh, with fed. Now we're in that game as well. So if credit unions want to be involved in fed now or real time payments, they can come through their corporate credit union. A lot of those things require not only the corporate and the credit unions be on the same page, but it also provides the core process or to be all properly aligned.

Uh, it's called Virtus. ai Know, K N O W. And what it does is this. It basically helps credit unions identify the data they have. First of all, credit unions have all kinds of data. A lot of them will say, I'm not sure how to get to it. I don't know what it is. I'm not sure how to read it. What do I do with it?

So we came up with this product where basically it helps credit unions not only identify their data, but pulls it out, helps them understand what data they actually have. But the important thing about it is it helps them actually grow their credit union and a quick example. I'll give is credit union of 20, 000 members.

So that's stuff that years ago. You would never think of a corporate credit union for doing those types of things. And it's important for us to be in that game because we only serve credit unions. And so we need to have credit unions remain relevant for their membership. And we've got to make sure we're providing the products and services necessary to help them thrive as we move forward here.

We've been helping that there. There's only so many ways to slice this up. And corporate credit unions have been doing a lot of this for years. Uh. And and trying to be less sexy about it and doing it cost effectively, um, and I won't throw out names, but there was, uh, you know, a fintech for excess share insurance and broker deposits.

I'm just like, Oh, You mean what corporate credit unions have been doing for 30 years. Yeah, exactly. So it's been interesting.

Rodney May of Vizo: It has been. And I think that you nailed it on the head when it comes down to like a corporate credit union. It's the old saying, the old Oldsmobile commercial I grew up with. It's not your dad's Oldsmobile.

Um, and what that allows us to do is this, really get back in the whole cooperative sense of supplying credit unions a patronage dividend. Um, we call it a member incentive credit. So if you use a lot of the services with us, we're going to actually Pay you back a percentage of what you did last year. If you used eight of our core services, we actually reimbursed credit union 75 percent of what we build them.

Um, that was based on the number of services they used. I mean, that's truly when it gets good. Not only do they benefit from the products and services we're using, but then in the end of the day, end of the year, you get a nice little, uh, uh, patronage dividend that usually helps offset some, uh, financial losses you may have occurred during the year.

So that's. That's when it got real from my perspective, because that's what it's all about. I mean, we, we're at a point now, our capital is, is at a good spot. Um, we made it through all the issues and things of that nature, we're able to pay back the credit unions that stayed with us every cent they lost, uh, over the years.

Mark Ritter: You know, MBFS is owned a hundred percent by retail credit unions to bring them together for business services. And it's a similar, uh, offering with Vizzo and other corporates out there. And, you know, I, I just love You know, back when I was in central Pennsylvania, you know, the corporates would all, they were the commute, they were the town square to bring credit unions together.

So talk, give people an idea on what you do, maybe on the educational and resources, just besides just shilling products.

We try to host 40 to 50 webinars a year from an educational perspective that allows credit unions from anywhere to participate. We offer them for free. Um, and we usually get top notch speakers whenever it comes to that. So that's that's one thing. And we try to throw CPE credits into it. Like last year, if you participated in all of our webinars and all of our, our ed session, you can earn over 75 CPE credits.

Um, and, um, so that's, that's a, that's another cool feature, uh, going to the corporate credit union. And then also, as you, as you were alluding to just bringing people together. We have a risk management conference we hold every year in the springtime, try to get the top notch speakers in there. Once again, while remote is awesome, it's always good to also, if you can actually have some live events, get people together.

In the room that are just helping credit unions get better at what they actually do. And we feel as if from a corporate's perspective, that's one of our responsibilities to make sure credit unions are remaining relevant to their members. We want to remain relevant to ours. Education is such an easy thing.

Have focus groups, get their feedback on what they're actually thinking. I mean, the whole Virtus. ai came out of, uh, I reached out [00:21:00] to 10 credit unions saying, what is your number one need right now? And everybody was saying data. We have this data. We don't know what to do with it. So we will actually take that information.

Now, will it serve everybody the way it wants to be served? Absolutely not. However, it's going to benefit more credit unions than it won't. And by going through the corporate, it's set up in such a way where it's affordable because Once again, we're not a for profit company. We're not out here to make shareholders happy.

We're out here making sure that our members like our financials and they are earning a decent rate overnight and they have a corporate credit union that they know they can actually rely on. So whenever you operate that way, it's not even like you're in business. I mean, it's like you're doing the right thing.

Come on. It's pretty. Pretty straightforward.

There are a lot of people. On the, uh, who, who have ncua. gov, uh, emails that listen to this show. We're in a new administration. Things are changing. You've been around for the good, bad, and the ugly, and now the great times. Is there anything if you had a wish list that the NCUA could do to improve corporate credit unions or, or, or, or work on the relationship that maybe are relics from the Great Recession, or, or you think everything's in a pretty good place and they treat corporates pretty well?

Rodney May of Vizo: Yeah, well, um, my history in regards to which is, uh, the Great Recession. Once again, I'm not going to go into detail there. Rank 704 came out of that was completely rewritten. That was one of my responsibilities at the corporate. Don't read the reg. Understand what it actually is. Obviously, it did strict the, uh, the.

See maybe some stuff loosened up. However, for 15 years, we've been playing in this space and have been doing it. Fairly well, and it has a lot to do with the fact that before the regulation was put into place. We were fairly conservative corporate credit union. So we didn't have to really change the way we did a lot of things.

Just tell us what the parameters are. We're going to play within those parameters, and we're going to make sure one members benefit from it. And then to make sure we don't obviously get in trouble with any, any violations. So we definitely have a good relationship with, uh, as a state charter to North Carolina, and we get obviously our annual reviews from NCUA.

Mark Ritter: I just think sometimes the pen, the pendulum in the regulatory world swings too far and it tends to fight yesterday's battle. So, so I hope they look at corporates differently, like it's not 2008 again. So, so let's talk, so somebody's. Who do you find is the best contact and relationship at between a corporate and a retail credit union?

And what's a good and healthy relationship for you? What's a good client? Uh, you know, what are the people who are successfully using your services do where other people tend to falter?

Rodney May of Vizo: Okay. Yep. Yep. Sure. Um, as far as our main contacts, it varies anywhere because, you know, credit union CEOs can wear a lot of hats.

They're not, they're not having funds parked at places where they're losing basis points. Like I said before, the end of the federal reserve, things of that nature. Um, we're, we're beating all those from an overnight account perspective. Um, so that's definitely number one, understanding diversification is key.

So I realized you can't have all your eggs in one basket, however, max out what you're allowed to have at a corporate credit union, you will definitely benefit from that. That's number one, as far as products and services go, once again, we're not for profit. Our ultimate goal is to. Provide the best possible product that credit unions need and do it at a cost that's pretty much a wash from them.

Think about, you know, we always say we want to be number one on your speed dial. Uh, for the most part, we think we can help you out. If we can't, we're going to tell you where to go from that perspective. So a perfect relationship we have with the credit union. Is someone that will essentially do the basic services with us.

However, reach out with us whenever they have a need on their behalf. And like, like you said, Mark, I mean, we do a lot of things. However, you can go to a credit union, visit them six times in a row, tell them your products and services. If the needs not there, they don't even remember you told them what services you have.

And like I said, that's allowed us to get into the cyber security space, dealing with artificial intelligence, AI, things of that nature. So, um, that's, that's the ideal situation for us.

Mark Ritter: Rodney, I want nothing more. Then to get our industry back to being cooperatives that work with each other together for the benefit of everybody.

And maybe we're just getting old, but you know, I think we, we do that and have that spirit and I know Vizzo does in the corporate credit unions and I just think people need to look. In word in our industry, first and foremost, and like you said, you sometimes you got to shop around, but at least consider our industry owned businesses.

Rodney May of Vizo: Yep. Yep. Sure thing. Yeah. You can reach out to us. Um, vfccu. org is our website. Uh, I'm rmay at vfccu. org. Feel free to contact me directly. Um, within our website, there's, there's, uh, opportunities just to click on the marketing, the event, educational activities, um, but just take a look at our website and, uh, there's definitely plenty of ways for you to get ahold of us.

And like I said, I mean, I'll, I'll talk to anybody. Any day about what corporate credit unions can offer them. So, um, I'm willing to talk to you whenever. So it's, it's a great gig and I love what I do. And, uh, I'm just glad I, uh. Didn't get paid on that internship 32 years ago. Maybe I wouldn't have liked it as much if they would have actually paid me.

So I think things have worked out pretty well at this point.

Give them a call and at least have the conversation because it is truly important that we all work together for the benefit of all the different cooperatives. So this is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union Conversations. Thank you, and I hope to see you very soon.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to the Credit Union Conversations podcast.

Have a question? Visit markritter. com for more information.