The Banktastics

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

One-Touch Bank?
I shared a question from Creative Brand Communication’s Blog last week to see how many FIs would be interested! An architect named Adam Kalkin recently revealed a building that’s opened by a press of a button. Creative Brand’s take was that this is a great idea for FIs! Just to pop open a branch anywhere you can would definitely be a cool move for banks.

News: 3 Waring Signs Your Bank May Fail
Brad shared a good article recently that talked about 3 warning signs that your bank may fail. All 3 of the signs were prevalent with IndyMac right before they went under. Here’s the list:

-Is your bank offering high CD rates & savings rates?
-Does your bank lend heavily in California, Las Vegas or Florida?
-Is your bank being slaughtered by the stock market?

If any of these sound like your bank, you might want to try to make some changes to prevent from going under! And if you can think of any other warning signs for others to look out for, post your comments on this blog, or share them with the Banktastic Community!

Check Out the Vendors Section!
We’ve notice an increase in activity in Vendors section lately! Several people have worked to add new companies and share their reviews, and we thank them for that! So if you haven’t checked out what’s out there lately, head on over now and get to rating! If you have any questions about rating a vendor or claiming a vendor profile, just shoot an email to lisa@banktastic.com!

Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.

Thanks to our sponsors!
We’d like to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, Texas State Bank! We greatly appreciate your support!

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The CU Scoop” featuring Mark McSpadden. Here are some important notes about this episode:

The Future of Financial Branding
Jeffry Pilcher guest blogged for Open Source CU recently and discussed in a two-part series The Future of Financial Branding. He gives six predictions about what trends we’ll see, which institutions will thrive, and what problems others will run into. He makes a call for credit unions to really stand out and be different, try something new to make your brand unique. Besides, who isn’t jumping on the “green” wagon these days? Your customers will expect more.

I Can Has Account?
Speaking of Jeffry Pilcher, he posted on his blog about Arizona State Credit Union and their new campaign targeting college students through the use of LOL Cats. Using the phrase, “I Can Has Cheezburger,” after the extremely popular website, their campaign offers an actual free cheeseburger when college students open new checking accounts. Some think this is a great effort on ASCU’s part to reach out to Gen Y through their obsession with LOL Cats. What are your thoughts on ASCU’s new campaign, or as I like to call it, LOLpaign?

And on this note, I made a mistake when discussing this with Mark earlier. The exclamation point was in the Twitter that Jeffry Pilcher posted, not actually in the promotional sign created by ASCU. I had it backwards, but I still noticed!

CU Hype New Project: CUQuickSites
If your credit union website has any type of animated GIF on it, you need to visit CUQuickSites right now. This latest project from CU Hype provides a ton of templates and different packages to best suit your credit union and its size. This is something credit unions should definitely look into if they’re wanting a new look with cool features to make a site your members will love!

Thanks to our sponsors!
We’d like to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, Texas State Bank! We greatly appreciate your support!

You can be on The CU Scoop!
We’re interested in your thoughts on topics and trends in the credit union industry. If you want to be a part of our show, record your own video (roughly 2-3 minutes long) and upload it to our Viddler.com account. Here’s the log-in information:
username: thecuscoop
password: markymark
Remember the rules: 1.) no bank bashing, and 2.) don’t self-promote too much. If you have any questions about sharing your video with The CU Scoop crew, send an email to mark@banktastic.com.

What’s on the whiteboard this week?
See what’s behind Mark’s head this week!

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The CU Scoop” to mark@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community. We’re always looking for your input.

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

As you saw yesterday on episode 26 of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst”, we’ve created some awesome BanktasticTV shirts that you can order. Click the images below to get your hands on one now.

The Banktastic Shirt

The CU Scoop Shirt

And a big congratulations to Christopher M. for being the first to comment on The Burst yesterday and winning his very own Banktastic shirt! Expect that in the mail soon, Chris.

Download this video

Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

Get Some BanktasticTV Tees!
Brad created some awesome shirts for you guys on Zazzle! But the best part is that the first person to comment on this episode on the blog gets a shirt for FREE! If you don’t happen to comment first but still want a shirt, let us know and we’ll get you the information so that you can order one!

Q&A: Is the financial crisis only affecting banks and not CUs?
Brad asked a question on Banktastic to see if you all think CUs are being affected as much as banks have been by the recent mortgage crisis and recession. We think that perhaps CUs have stricter lending practices, which might be why they’re not running into as many issues as banks are right now. These are just our thoughts, and we’d love to hear what you think! Post your thoughts on the question on Banktastic, or comment on the blog!

Brad got his iPhone!
It didn’t take long, but it finally came in - Brad got his iPhone! He’s rather impressed with it so far and loving the new apps. We actually started chatting it up a little bit about an app that shows people where you are at any given time. There are already some apps out there that perform similar tasks, but not necessarily what we’re talking about. Watch the episode to check out our idea, and see if you think you’d want something like that on your phone.

Possible Facebook Payments App?
The Facebook F8 Conference was Wednesday, and there were rumors that Facebook was creating a payments app. Not knowing much more than that, Brad and I speculated that it would be an application to serve developers so that they can charge for their apps or accept donations.

However, the F8 Conference is over, and we’ve got some bad news. No payments app has been released. However, Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook Connect. To learn more about that, click on the link above and read all about it!

Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.

Thanks to our sponsors!
We’d like to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, Texas State Bank! We greatly appreciate your support!

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

Thanks for checking out the first episode of BanktasticTV’s “Blow Up Your Marketing.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

Welcome, Jeff Stephens!
We’d like to give a warm welcome to Jeff Stephens at Creative Brand Communications! He’s put together a new show that’s going to be aired on a regular basis on BanktasticTV. This show is about improving your brand and working with all things marketing.

Viewer response and interaction is highly encouraged by Jeff, so feel free to send your thoughts on his show to blowitup@creative-brand.com.

Check out this show and leave some comment love on the Banktastic Blog!

Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “Blow Up Your Marketing” to blowitup@creative-brand.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

Our Sponsor Gets Slammed!
Texas State Bank, BanktasticTV’s current sponsor, has made it big in the viral video business lately. One of their cameras caught a truck pulling a camper as it ran into their covered drive-thru banking area, pulling everything down with it. You can watch the video clip in the above episode. It’s pretty crazy to think that everybody made it out just fine! Neither of us thought anybody could walk away from that! Amazing video - watch it!

Q&A: Is your FI prepared to help Boomers?
An article that I found on Payment Industry Insider spawned a question I wanted to ask the Banktastic community. Is your FI working to help Boomers prepare for retirement? They’re a huge demographic and deserve your attention! The major hype lately has been on attracting Gen Y, but your loyal customers in the Boomers group are getting ready to retire and they need your help! Over 60% of this demographic is concerned about not having enough money to retire or to cover medical costs.

The question really is this: do you have any programs established to help the Boomers along as they take this big step? They could use your guidance, and this is a great opportunity for your FI! Let us know if you have any programs or ideas!

The iPhone: Evolutionary or Revolutionary?
Some discussions are going on about whether the iPhone is going to revolutionize the banking industry. Since it’s release on July 11, the new iPhone is making a huge splash, and FIs are taking notice. Many have worked to create apps to coincide with the new iPhone release. With the phone’s technology and banks’ work to create apps to work with it, some are considering the iPhone to be a revolutionary tool for the banking industry. Others completely disagree and think it’s going to take a heck of a lot more than a phone to get a banking revolution. A lot of people are getting in on the discussion, so go check it out and add your thoughts!

Also, if you want to read Brad’s recent experience trying to get his hands on one of the new iPhones, click here. It’s a shame, but there are probably countless others going through the same situation he described in his blog post.

News: Disgruntled Employee Locks San Francisco Out of Network
I stumbled across this news story recently, and I had to share it with Banktastic. Apparently a disgruntled computer network admin, Terry Childs, got some less than stellar reviews at work, so he locked up San Francisco’s computer network by putting in his own password and refusing to give the right one to authorities. Officials have been unable to crack the access codes on their own, and are worried that he may have sabotaged the system to leak some critical data. Either way, this guy is in a huge pile of trouble - in jail on $5 million bond. Yikes.

Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.

Thanks to our sponsors!
We’d like to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, Texas State Bank! We greatly appreciate your support!

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

Download this video

Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The CU Scoop” featuring Mark McSpadden. Here are some important notes about this episode:

New iPhone Release
If you have a tv, radio, internet connection, eyes or ears, you’ve probably noticed that Apple released it’s brand-new iPhone this past Friday. Along with this release came a race for companies to create an app to go with the new phone. We’re glad to see that Mt. Lehman CU from Canada developed an app that connects you with your recent account activity right on your iPhone (and iPod touch). As Mark said, Mt. Lehman shows that a credit union of any size can be innovative and keep up with changing technology. Great job, guys!

Remarkd.com
Mark stumbled across this cool site that helps non-profits help members interact with one another. It works by members posting items up for sale on the site, and then the members give a portion of the proceeds from the sale to benefit a cause. It’d be great to see if CUs could use Remarkd for their member base, or just particular groups within your CU. We think you oughta check this out when you can!

Thanks to our sponsors!
We’d like to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, Texas State Bank! We greatly appreciate your support!

You can be on The CU Scoop!
We’re interested in your thoughts on topics and trends in the credit union industry. If you want to be a part of our show, record your own video (roughly 2-3 minutes long) and upload it to our Viddler.com account. Here’s the log-in information:
username: thecuscoop
password: markymark
Remember the rules: 1.) no bank bashing, and 2.) don’t self-promote too much. If you have any questions about sharing your video with The CU Scoop crew, send an email to mark@banktastic.com.

What’s on the whiteboard this week?
See what’s behind Mark’s head this week!

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The CU Scoop” to mark@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community. We’re always looking for your input.

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

Download this video

Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

Q&A: http://www.banktastic.com/questions/155-if-you-had-500-000-to-open-a-online-branch-how-would-you-spend-it
JB D. asked a really great question recently on Banktastic. How would you spend $500k if your CEO gave it to you in order to create a virtual branch? A lot of really great responses have come from this question, and you can add yours! Just follow this link and tell us how you’d spend your $500,000!

New Features on Banktastic!
We’ve added a whole BUNCH of new awesome features & goodies on Banktastic lately. We talk about just a few of them in this episode, but you can browse around the site and check them out for yourself!

Reply by Email
This was a big one for us - we’ve released our reply by email feature! This one was in the making for a while, and we’re glad to have it out and working well! When you submit a news article or a question and someone responds, you can simply reply to the notification email you receive. This is going to help the conversation continue on without ripping you away from checking your email. Try it out, and let us know what you think!

Badges for your Blog
If you share a lot of content on Banktastic, we’ve got a little goodie to help pimp out your blog. These badges show that you contribute to our community, and they come in three different colors, so pick whichever suits you best! Check out our About page to pick out which one you like and post it up on your blog!

Tweaked the “Hotness” Algorithm
This feature is a little more behind-the-scenes than the others, but makes a big difference in what you see on Bantkastic. We’ve created an algorithm that determines from all the content what’s hot and what’s not. You should see some differences in how well Banktastic feeds you hot content!

New Error Pages
We’ve put together a really awesome new error page! All the Banktastics have taken some shots that show how we feel when Bantkastic breaks down on us. We’re looking to add your shots, too! Just pick up that camera, open up PhotoBooth, do whatever - just show us how you feel when Banktastic doesn’t work right!

Banktastic’s First Official Private Network!
We are thrilled to announce that we officially have an association coming to the network side of Banktastic! Texas Bankers Association, the largest bankers association in the country, has signed on with us, and we greatly look forward to their arrival! It’s going to bring a lot of people to the conversations on Banktastic, so get ready, everybody.

Banktastic’s Sticker Fun Flickr Group
We’ve mentioned it before, but we’ll bring it up again just in case you missed it! If you’ve received some Banktastic stickers, take pictures of where you put them and post them up in our Banktastic’s Sticker Fun Flickr Group! If you want some Banktastic stickers, just email lisa@banktastic.com, send your address, and we’ll get some to you in the mail ASAP!

Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

Download this video

Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The CU Scoop” featuring Mark McSpadden. Here are some important notes about this episode:

BarCampBankLondon!
BarCampBankLondon was just held on July 5. You’ve probably heard quite a bit about all the recent BarCampBank events being held lately. If you’re interested in attending one, there are several more coming up in the next few weeks:

BarCampBankChicago will happen July 16
BarCampBankCharleston will happen July 26/27

Check out the BCBs above to see about registering. Get in on the discussion while you still can!

Credit Union Joins Credit Karma
News surfaced recently about a credit union partnered up with Credit Karma. The Pentagon Federal CU has joined many banks in posting its rates in the special offers section for Credit Karma users. We think it’s a great move for credit unions to get some exposure through Credit Karma. Good on ya, PenFed!

Q&A: What is your CU doing to collaborate?
Lisa asked this question a while back on Banktastic, but it failed to get any leverage. Mark’s posing the question now to The CU Scoop audience - what is your CU doing to collaborate? Is your CU considering working with another to generate better results? If you have a response for this discussion, head on over to the question on Banktastic and let us know what you think!

Thanks to our sponsors!
We’d like to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, Texas State Bank! We greatly appreciate your support!

You can be on The CU Scoop!
We’re interested in your thoughts on topics and trends in the credit union industry. If you want to be a part of our show, record your own video (roughly 2-3 minutes long) and upload it to our Viddler.com account. Here’s the log-in information:
username: thecuscoop
password: markymark
Remember the rules: 1.) no bank bashing, and 2.) don’t self-promote too much. If you have any questions about sharing your video with The CU Scoop crew, send an email to mark@banktastic.com.

What’s on the whiteboard this week?
See what’s behind Mark’s head this week!

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The CU Scoop” to mark@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community. We’re always looking for your input.

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

Download this video

Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

Behind the Scenes
We wanted to try a little something different this week an introduce you all to one of the Banktastics that you may not have seen around. Dave Kruse is a developer for Banktastic, and works from Minnesota -we’re based out of Dallas, TX.

Brad wanted to take a little bit of time to let you all get to know him a little better. They discuss some of the main points of our community and how he contributes everyday through the virtual workplace. We’re glad to have you aboard, Dave!

Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.

See you next week!

-The Banktastics