In this episode of Grow Your Credit Union, host Joshua Barclay and co-host Becky Reed welcome Bill Snider, Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at Clearview Federal Credit Union, to discuss the struggles of digital literacy, when the wells run low, and are we always better together.
The Struggles of Digital Literacy
Tech-savvy new hires can be harder to find than you’d think, even in our always-online world. As Bill Snider, Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at Clearview Federal Credit Union, notes, there’s a striking contrast between employees adept with mobile apps but unfamiliar with basic PC tasks. Becky Reed points out that a younger workforce using phones and tablets for nearly everything often lacks experience with Outlook, Excel, and other software credit unions rely on daily.
Training, then, becomes crucial. Bill encourages cross-training and upskilling to fill these knowledge gaps. Credit unions can’t expect candidates to arrive with every digital skill already perfected. Instead, offering clear training paths—whether for basic Office tools or advanced AI usage—helps develop a more tech-competent workforce.
When the Well Runs Low
Historic low liquidity is raising alarm bells for many credit unions. Bill explains that Clearview Federal CU is tackling this by reevaluating asset durations and creating a dedicated deposit department—an increasingly proactive move. Balancing loan portfolios with deposits and weighing the benefits of emerging tech like AI and tokenization are all part of the modern liquidity playbook.
Yet Becky reminds us there’s “nothing new under the sun,” emphasizing how economic cycles repeat. The difference? Credit unions now have access to more powerful tools—like predictive analytics—to stay agile and avoid past missteps. If anything, the current environment is pushing leaders to think creatively about how to stabilize and even grow their liquidity positions.
Are We Always Better Together?
A whopping 46 credit union mergers took place in Q2, many citing “expanded services” as motivation. Bill warns against rushing in without a plan, likening it to The Graduate’s final scene—uncertain of what to do next. From potential culture clashes to redundant core systems, thorough preparation is essential.
Meanwhile, Becky questions whether “bigger is better” is always a worthwhile pursuit. The cost of merging—staff integration, technology conversions, and rebranding—can often surprise even seasoned leaders. Both agree that if you do merge, ensure it’s the right partnership at the right time. Without a solid roadmap, new members, branches, and locations can quickly become more of a burden than a benefit.
Top Takeaways from This Episode
- Don’t assume new hires have Microsoft Office or advanced tech knowledge. Offer structured training to build digital competency at all levels.
- Proactively examine asset durations, deposit products, and tech tools like AI to maintain balance and financial health.
- Mergers can create opportunities—but also require careful cost-benefit analysis and detailed planning.
- Economic conditions repeat in new guises, so stay prepared with modern solutions—from tokenization to predictive analytics—to meet evolving challenges.
- When merging, address staffing, branding, and operational overlaps early, ensuring both credit union teams and members see real value in uniting.
Full Transcript
Joshua Barclay: Credit union leaders, here’s what we’ve got for you today. First up, is digital literacy improving, or is finding tech-savvy talent still a challenge for credit unions? Our next topic—credit union liquidity. It is near historic lows. So, how can we safeguard financial stability? And our last topic, we’re talking mergers. Are they the tough but necessary path to growth in 2025?
Welcome to Grow Your Credit Union. I am your host, Joshua Barkley, and this is the podcast where credit union leaders gather, learn, and grow. With me, as always, is my co-hostess with the mostest: Becky Reed. Becky, what’s up?
Becky Reed: Howdy, y’all.
Joshua Barclay: Becky, before we start, I want to let you know—you might be proud of me here, because I know you do a lot of speaking engagements, but I want to let you know I had my very first keynote speech at Future Branches Austin last week.
Becky Reed: That is awesome. How was that? Were you on the big stage talking to everybody, or in a breakout?
Joshua Barclay: So I thought it was going to be a rinky-dink breakout, like one of those small public-library-type rooms. Turns out I was in one of the main stages with hundreds of people.
Becky Reed: Ooh.
Joshua Barclay: I was a little nervous when I found that out, but you know what? I think I crushed it, because I saw the cell phones coming out. You know when people take pictures of your slides?
Becky Reed: Yes.
Joshua Barclay: I saw a lot of people pulling out their phones. And I got some laughs early on—some self-deprecating humor. For listeners who don’t know, I produced a really bad Lifetime movie when I was in film school. So all I had to do, Becky, was mention that I produced one of those terrible movies, and everybody laughed. I think it gave me grace—disarmed them a bit. But what are your tips, Becky, for keynotes moving forward?
Becky Reed: Well, I think you have to keep the audience engaged. But what I do find, Joshua, is it’s easier for me to speak to a larger crowd than a smaller crowd. You have to temper your style depending on how many people there are. If it’s a room of two or three hundred people, as opposed to twenty, the twenty-person room can be more conversational and casual, whereas for two hundred, you need those “zingers” that make people take their phones out to snap your slides.
Joshua Barclay: Well, Becky, first one down. I only need 5,000 more to catch up with you, but this is not a competition. Let’s kick the show off, because we have a good one today. We welcome—and I say a big welcome because he and I have been speaking behind the scenes for a while now, so I’m excited to finally bring him on the show—the Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Clearview Federal Credit Union, Bill Snyder. Bill, welcome to Grow Your Credit Union.
Bill Snider: Thank you so much. It’s great to be here.
Topic: Digital Literacy & Tech-Savvy Talent
Joshua Barclay: When it comes to digital literacy, most Americans are barely passing the test. In a survey by Pew Research Center, gauging knowledge on digital topics, the median score was a dismal 4 out of 10—that’s barely a gentleman’s C. And get this: only 20 percent of people in the survey managed to get seven or more correct answers. Now, I’m going to be honest: this survey is outdated (it’s from 2019), but I’m curious if it still holds up. So, Bill, in your experience, is it still challenging to find talent with strong digital literacy in 2024?
Bill Snider: Let me start by saying I recently gave a keynote myself, and this was one of the items in my keynote, so I’m glad we’re talking about it. Even though the study might be a couple of years old, I still think it’s relevant, and it definitely applies. It’s important to find people who have the right skills. As I tell my team and others—and as I said in the keynote—this isn’t the old days where the IT department was all you needed, with somebody who could just reset your computer. Everybody needs basic skills.
It’s interesting: I have two kids in high school, and one of them is taking a class on how to prompt AI chatbots. So the folks coming out of school often already have these skills. For us, it’s more about upskilling the current workforce, making sure they can learn new things as tech keeps evolving. I always say, the pandemic was five years ago—if you can’t find the mute button on a Zoom call, we might have to work on some other skills too.
Joshua Barclay: Becky, when it comes to hiring for digitally literate candidates, is that a problem you’re seeing now, or do you think the general population is up to speed with the daily tech we use?
Becky Reed: Let me tell you a story from when I was working at the credit union. Now I’m at a software development company, which requires some pretty technical skills—blockchain, AI, more modern tech. But at the credit union, I noticed something with “foundational employees,” those on the front line in the branch or call center who talk to members every day. We use a PC or laptop with either macOS or Windows. Most credit unions use Windows and Microsoft products.
What we found with new hires, often younger, was that they did everything through a mobile app. They didn’t really use an operating system on a laptop or PC. So that’s an interesting twist, right? That 2019 survey probably assumed people knew basic Excel, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, but for a lot of younger employees, it’s a different skill set.
Bill Snider: Yeah, I had a similar experience, assuming everyone could use Outlook. I remember telling a new team member to schedule a meeting, look at someone’s calendar, and send an invite. They were freaked out because they’d never done it. That led to an interesting conversation: we assume everyone can create a PowerPoint slide, but in reality, many are used to iPads or phones—it’s just a different skill set.
Joshua Barclay: Bill, do you have any prerequisites for digital skills when you hire? And if someone has the right personality but lacks certain skills, do you have a training path?
Bill Snider: Yes, it’s important they have basic skills, but I also love hiring people who are passionate and mesh well with the team. At the end of the day, though, they do need to do some work—send emails, make slides, build spreadsheets. Now that’s expanding to can they create an AI prompt, can they summarize a big article with AI? We at Clearview ensure they have the right education, and if not, we or others help them learn. Because some of these skills just aren’t automatically there.
Competitive Edge vs. Big Banks
Joshua Barclay: Becky, you’re at a very forward-thinking tech company. I just heard at a conference—can’t quote exact numbers—but Bank of America has something like 6,000 AI scientists. How do credit unions compete with these behemoths when the tech literacy gap is so stark, and we can’t pay what they can? What are your thoughts?
Becky Reed: It’s time for credit unions to double down on our cooperative spirit. If you think about how big banks have these giant tech budgets, well, credit unions can’t compete on that level by building everything in-house. That means we either partner or buy. Credit unions historically aren’t great at building software. I’m a credit union person who now works at a software company, and I don’t know how to build a piece of software—that’s our founder’s expertise.
Chase has an 18 billion tech budget, with maybe 600 people working just in tech. They’re essentially a software development company for their bank. Credit unions don’t have that budget or skill set. So we have to buy. QUSOs are a fantastic example—usually owned by credit unions, they understand the space. Another piece of that is credit unions are terrible at piloting or doing proof of concept. They want prepackaged solutions, which might not be best. But partner with someone who gets your business, and buy it instead of trying to build it all yourself.
Credit Union Liquidity
Joshua Barclay: Credit union liquidity is near a historic low, which begs questions about financial resilience and ability to meet member needs in uncertain times. Bill, with these liquidity problems, what strategies are you employing to boost liquidity without sacrificing stability or member trust?
Bill Snider: I’m not the CFO, but not a day goes by that I’m not involved in a conversation about making sure we’re liquid with our assets. It’s a challenge but also an opportunity. We do a few things. We’re looking at the duration of our assets, both long-term and short-term, whereas before rising rates, we might have locked into longer-term investments. We’re also looking more at deposit products now—so much so that we actually created a whole new department focused on deposits. They examine our current and future deposit needs, maybe trying different things that are new to us.
Our finance team also runs constant scenario analysis—what if rates go up, down, etc.—to make sure we can still support the folks who bank with us. Then we share that with the executive team, so each group can respond accordingly.
Is This Liquidity Situation Different?
Joshua Barclay: I like that you created a new department—I didn’t expect that. Becky, do you agree with Bill? Is this situation just the same old cycle we’ve seen before, or is it different this time? With COVID behind us, inflation, printing press moments, AI, geopolitical issues, $1,000 Camry payments—are the alarm bells going off, or is this just “we’ve been here, we’ll get through it”?
Becky Reed: Well, I’ll quote Scripture—Song of Solomon: “There is nothing new under the sun.” So it’s same stuff, different day. Maybe it’s a little different, but I remember two decades of zero interest rates. For emerging technology, though—things like tokenizing deposits or loan portfolios—there are new ways to do ALM, distributing those assets or liabilities across the industry. AI can help with predictive analytics, analyzing when deposits are lowest, maybe bridging that with non-member deposits. Lots of new possibilities that weren’t available five years ago.
Bill Snider: I had an internship a long time ago, and someone there told me everything goes in cycles—maybe it feels new, but it’s likely happened before. For me, or for others here who haven’t seen this environment, it’s new, but it’s occurred historically. So it’s an opportunity to learn from the past and be better prepared for next time. That’s partly why we’re restructuring some of our deposit products—so if this happens again, we’re not caught by surprise.
Becky Reed: Necessity is the mother of invention, right?
Mergers & Acquisitions
Joshua Barclay: For many credit union leaders, the road to a better member experience leads to mergers and acquisitions. Of the 46 mergers in Q2, 32 cited “expanded services” as motivation, but the path to that dream has challenges. Bill, you’ve led Clearview through several mergers, so you know the hard work and foresight required. For leaders considering a merger, what are the biggest challenges to consider?
Bill Snider: What you don’t want is that final scene from “The Graduate,” where they’re on the bus after interrupting the wedding and look at each other like, “What next?” So you have to plan. Sure, merging sounds great—combining locations, people, balance sheets. But what about the back-office people, the branch staff, culture, or basic logistics like two cores or two credit card processors? How do you sunset one and keep the other? Those conversations ideally happen before any paperwork is signed or members vote. I think mergers will continue and get larger, so these talks have to happen even earlier to make sure it’s smooth. You don’t want to end up saying, “We have all these new members, employees, branches, but no plan.”
Biggest Unforeseen Hurdles in Mergers
Joshua Barclay: Specifically, Bill, what did you not foresee that hit you over the head?
Bill Snider: Some staffing overlap. We’d think we had a good plan, but some people just weren’t a great fit. Sometimes we changed how we staffed branches because the new members from the merger had different banking habits. If they were used to visiting a branch instead of calling a center, that’s going to affect traffic. We also discovered silly things like calendars, notebooks—basic supplies. Every time we do a merger, we learn something and try to improve the next time.
Becky Reed: Well, I don’t necessarily subscribe to the “economies of scale” argument anymore. Bigger isn’t always better. I used to push to my board that we have to get bigger. The only way is a merger. But having gone through looking at it from both sides, the cost-benefit analysis is important. Because that cost is the members’ money. It can be millions to combine core systems, especially if a contract’s not up for years. If you have two different infrastructure setups—maybe one is 100 percent virtual, the other uses physical servers that haven’t been depreciated—if you put those servers out of commission, you take that expense. So you have to ask, is it better for members overall? Is it worth the cost?
Bill Snider: Right, we talk about the right merger at the right time. We’ve turned some down if they don’t fit who we are or if the cost outweighs the benefits. No matter how big it is, you still have certain tasks that require the same team resources. We also started acquiring branches, which introduced new location issues—how much renovation do they need? We had someone run into a sign right after we opened one branch, so that was an unexpected expense. So you want to ensure the benefits outweigh the costs.
Closing Thoughts
Joshua Barclay: Don’t jump into bed with a merger before you think about it, folks! That wraps our show. Bill, do you have any final thoughts?
Bill Snider: First, thanks for having me. It was a great experience. I think all our topics tie together under the theme of continuous learning and growth. Skill development, asset mix, mergers—there’s a lot of information out there, so keep reading, listening to podcasts, and keep growing. That’s the important thing—grow yourself and grow your organization.
Joshua Barclay: If people want to reach you, Bill, what’s the best way?
Bill Snider: LinkedIn. I’m Bill Snyder, you’ll see my smiling face. Send a message—I’ll respond within a day or two, and we can chat from there.
Becky, final thoughts?
Becky Reed: We said there’s nothing new under the sun; things are cyclical. But also, circumstances do change. We have to adapt. So yes, learn from experience, but embrace the new paradigm.
Joshua Barclay: And Becky, for people who want to reach you?
Becky Reed: Becky Reed on LinkedIn.
Joshua Barclay: That’s right—LinkedIn. I’ll start answering that one for you from now on, but I wanted to be polite. I want to thank Bill for dropping by the show, Becky, my co-host, as always, thank you, and a special thanks to our listeners for supporting and listening to another episode of Grow Your Credit Union. If you like the show, follow us on your podcast player of choice. If you want to be a guest or talk about sponsorship opportunities, head to growyourcreditunion.com to learn more. Thank you for listening, and we’ll see you next time. Take care, and bye-bye.
