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Ep. 82 - MBFS Quick Hits feat. Craig Page - The Latest Happenings at MBFS
Episode 8227th May 2025 • Credit Union Conversations • Mark Ritter
00:00:00 00:12:49

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MBFS CEO Mark Ritter and a guest from his team catch up on the latest happenings at MBFS, the credit union industry, and other odds and ends.

IN THIS EPISODE:

  • (00:00) Craig Page shares his professional background and responsibilities
  • (01:57) Mark introduces a new, shorter episode format featuring MBFS team members
  • (04:30) Mark and Craig discuss their moves from suburbia to rural areas
  • (06:49) MBFS sees unexpected growth in 2025 in the CUSO
  • (08:41) Craig explains the value of small credit unions in partnering with a CUSO like MBFS
  • (10:32) Craig shares his reaction to the boom in lending

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

  • The Credit Union Conversations podcast has introduced a shorter, more conversational format featuring "quick hitters." These episodes, airing twice monthly, will focus on current industry topics, updates from MBFS, personal anecdotes, and team insights, in contrast to their traditional long-form interviews.
  • Despite expectations for a flat year, MBFS has experienced rapid growth, with seven new credit unions joining early in the year and 18 more in the pipeline. Loan volume has also increased, reflecting strong demand for its services.
  • Smaller credit unions are increasingly entering the member business lending space but face resource and staffing challenges. MBFS offers a “plug-and-play” solution, handling everything from origination and servicing to loan workouts, making it easier for credit unions to scale without heavy internal investment.

RESOURCE LINKS: 

Mark Ritter - Website

Mark Ritter - LinkedIn

Craig Page - LinkedIn

MBFS, CUSO, Mark Ritter, Credit Unions, Growth, Lending, Origination, Servicing, Pipeline, Small Credit Unions, Team, Industry, Business, Partnerships, Future of Lending, Boom in Lending, Unexpected Growth, Partnering With MBFS, Services, Loan Volume, Business Lending

Transcripts

Credit Union Conversations Ep 82 - Short Form - Quick Hits with MBFS

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[00:00:29] Craig Page: I'm wonderful work. Thanks for inviting me to join you today.

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[00:00:47] Craig Page: thank you. I am Chief Revenue Officer with MBFS.

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[00:01:10] Mark Ritter-Host: Awesome. Yeah, and in addition, Craig also, you know, handles a lot of our nationwide loan originations.

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[00:01:36] Craig Page: highly experienced.

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[00:01:40] Mark Ritter-Host: I haven't met anybody better. So I think you are the best. Thank you. And, and that's one of those things that you're good at, but it's not great to be, you know, it's like being the best root canal there, you, uh, dentist out there. So it, it's a great skill, but it's painful for a lot of people.

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[00:02:19] Great. And, and, and Craig, it's so weird for me to be out where people mentioned the podcast of like, oh, I listened to that. And, and, and it was, it was odd. The last conference I was at. The, it was a, you know, your typical group of people and doing some introductions and I said, oh, I'm Mark Ritter. And, and the one person said, oh, he's a podcast host, which was a first for me.

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[00:02:53] Craig Page: Yeah. No need to cringe you. You do a good job at it. You make your guests feel very comfortable and [00:03:00] you always provide informative content. So congratulations on coming up on a hundred.

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[00:03:05] Mark Ritter-Host: So these shows are going to be what I call quick hitters. We're gonna have a sidekick co-host from the MBFS arena, and we're going to hit, we're gonna hit some current topics. We're gonna hit some MBFS news. We're gonna have some fun with it. We're gonna have some personal anecdotes. We're gonna talk about what's going on in in the industry today as opposed to kind of what I'll call my long form interviews that we've done twice a month, which we're still going to do.

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[00:04:04] I have gone, as I've talked about, from suburbia to the, the countryside up in northern Pennsylvania, and Craig has gone from California to one of my favorite places in the, in the world, in Middle Tennessee. So, so Craig, what is the. Southern California versus Middle Tennessee Comparison.

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[00:04:48] I'm a native of Southern California, so it's been. It's been a lot of fun to have snow and rain and hill and lightning and, and seasons. Yeah, seasons looking out the window and see flowers [00:05:00] starting to come up. It's just, it, it's very, very different and it's been really fun. Like you, I was in suburbia and if I walk two houses down, there's a 300 acre corn farm.

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[00:05:18] Mark Ritter-Host: So right after college, I lived in Middle Tennessee for a couple years before the place I was working for, decided I'd be great to move back to Pennsylvania. Then I met my wife six weeks later and have not, and, and have never looked back, but it was, you know what freaked me out that first year down there was the weather alerts, because there's always.

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[00:05:56] Craig Page: Absolutely. We have, we have spent, we're been here [00:06:00] almost three years now. We're. Getting used to that as well.

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[00:06:18] Mark Ritter-Host: The generators are quite the stress relief, so,

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[00:06:22] Mark Ritter-Host: Yeah. Yeah. And it's also, when I lived in Tennessee, it was also that when, when you go through the checkout line and you have a full conversation with people and it kind of slows up the line, uh, or you know, or the server, it is quite a different cultural experience from Southern California.

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[00:06:49] Mark Ritter-Host: So this year, you know, we, we, we've, last year we did our budget planning and this year we kind of expected, sort of [00:07:00] flat, hoping for the same, you know, under my breath I was thinking, you know, we're, it's probably gonna be pretty slow again with rates go, it looked like interest rates were going on and then all of a sudden, maybe not all of a sudden, maybe beginning a little bit last year.

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[00:07:28] Craig Page: You know, so far it's been, as you said, mark it. The pace at which we have brought new credit unions on has been phenomenal so far. This year we have had seven new credit unions join us this year. Last year we were.

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[00:08:03] Mark Ritter-Host: Why do you think. We're seeing the new, you know, they're, they're not making new credit unions, you know, and every year we're losing 3% of 'em.

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[00:08:20] Craig Page: You know, great question. I think, mark, that there are credit unions that are beginning to just enter into member business lending, commercial lending, and so. They're partnering with the QSO to help them with the back office stuff so they don't have to expend the time and resources to hire people.

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[00:09:06] So it's a full service suite. And I think that credit unions are starting, a lot of them that are small are starting to to mature and grow to the place where they, they need a partner.

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[00:09:32] Everybody else, it it, it's something that we just, you know, they're, they're not seeing talent come in the door to able to hire, retain 'em. So people looked at people like us.

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[00:09:54] And it gives us a wider pool of talent that we can pick from. So [00:10:00] we're not bound to who we have in our town or in our county or whatever, but we can, we can pull, pull from the best and brightest no matter where they're located. And we have a great retention rate with our staff because we. You empower them to do what they need to do and do it well, and hopefully the whole senior team comes behind them and makes it a, a good and enjoyable place to work.

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[00:10:32] Mark Ritter-Host: So, and you've been having a, a lot of conversations with borrowers this year, much more than, you know, the end of 23 and 24. What, what are you seeing behind the boom in lending? What, what, what, what's the conversations you're having and observations.

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[00:10:54] And I think that, you know, everyone has been concerned about what, [00:11:00] what do these changes mean? Regulations and interest rates and all that. And I think people are just starting to realize that it, it's not the end of the world. Things are gonna continue to change and, and no one has a crystal ball. I think everyone thinks, you know.

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[00:11:23] Mark Ritter-Host: You know, I keep a, a business channel on as my background noise as, as I work here during the day so I don't go crazy and, and just listening to the wild swings of their opinions as far as recessions and interest rates.

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[00:12:00] Craig Page: I agree.

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[00:12:29] Mark Ritter-Host: Well, Craig, we're outta time. Thanks for joining me. We will continue the conversation in future weeks and hopefully people like the new format. And this is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union Conversations, and we will see you very soon.

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