Credit Union Movement

Supporting Credit Unions Through What's Next

Vizo Financial is what it is today because of the people and organizations that have helped shape it. Our members have trusted us to support their credit unions through changing market conditions. Our partners have worked alongside us to create new possibilities for the organizations we serve. Our employees have

Risk Management

Keeping Up with AI in Existing Vendor Relationships

AI is being integrated into every industry and every facet of modern organizations, including third party vendors. While it increases capability, it also compounds risk. Risk management becomes a challenge for IT and compliance teams as they rapidly adapt policies and safeguards while creating hinderances in information sharing due to

Credit Union Movement

Celebrating the People and Purpose Behind Credit Unions

What does a credit union mean to you? Is it the place you go to work every day and depend on for your own loans, savings and financial guidance? Or is it more than that? Credit unions have been a part of my life for a long time – maybe even

ALM

Strategic Forecasting: Building a Plan That Actually Guides Decisions

Effective strategic forecasting begins with clearly defined goals. Those goals provide a decision-making framework, establish practical guardrails and keep the organization aligned when competing priorities emerge. In our work with credit unions, strategic forecasts often fall into one of two extremes: they remain so high-level that the results

Payments

Winning Gen Z's Wallet: Why Faster Payments Matter for Gig Workers

For Gen Z, money moves differently because life moves differently. This generation grew up in a digital-first world where nearly everything is instant: communication, shopping, entertainment, transportation and work opportunities. And with that being the foundation of their reality, it also shapes their expectations for financial services. That’s

Risk Management

Can Your AI Explain Itself? What Black Box AI Means for Financial Institutions

Artificial intelligence is making decisions inside your financial organization right now. It’s screening transactions, flagging risk and surfacing exceptions. In many cases, it’s doing it faster than any human review process could. But let’s say an examiner asks how your fraud detection system reached a particular conclusion:

Risk Management

Keys to a Successful Audit

People often think of an audit as a few stressful weeks preparing for auditors to arrive, new requests coming in and everyone scrambling to find the information they need. In reality, a successful audit begins long before the first day of fieldwork. The most effective audits are the result of

Innovation & Technology

CBX: Features and Functionality Spotlight

What is CBX? Vizo Financial and our payments CUSO, MY CU Services, teamed up several years ago with CU*Answers and through this partnership, we offer CBX.  CBX is an independent and wholly-owned core processing software, supported and maintained by CU*Answers. CBX operates using the IBM i® server

Leadership & Culture

Recognition That Matters

Every single day something noteworthy is happening at your credit union. Someone quietly goes above and beyond, someone solves a problem for a member or colleague, someone keeps things moving behind the scenes. Recognition is about noticing these moments. Most people don’t need parades or prizes because they are

Employee Experience

Inclusive Leadership: Building a Workplace Where Everyone Can Thrive

Along with shaping an organization’s strategy and performance, leadership also defines culture. Every decision, interaction and communication from leadership sends a message about what is valued within an organization. Employees naturally look to leadership to understand the organization's priorities and expectations, and to see firsthand how their

Risk Management

People vs. AI: A Risk to Job Security?

AI…it’s just two simple letters, yet few topics spark as much debate and distress across the world. On one hand, it’s a welcome savior, one that simplifies complex concepts, summarizes data in an instant and turns time-consuming tasks into only moments of work. On the other,

Leadership & Culture

Strategic Thought and Planning: Making Time for Moments That Matter

Opportunity Knocks, Again The calendar doesn't lie. Planning season is upon us, and if you lead a credit union, you already know what that means: offsites are getting scheduled, templates are getting dusted off and the SWOT exercise is about to happen in a conference room that probably

The FedNow Service

All Aboard: A Conductor’s Rundown of Payment Rails

Payment rails are the infrastructure, technology and networks that move money between payers and payees. Think of them as railways for your money. They are different from payment processors or platforms. Demystifying the Infrastructure  To understand payment architecture, you must look beneath the sleek user interface of the checkout page.

Innovation & Technology

Partnerships, FinTechs, AI…Oh My! Navigating the New Financial Frontier

Credit unions are under increasing pressure to deliver the speed, convenience and personalization of the member experience. Members want seamless digital account opening, faster lending decisions, proactive fraud protection, real-time payments and accessible self-service options. At the same time, they continue to value the trust, guidance and personal

Risk Management

From Compliance to Resilience: Rethinking Risk Management in Today's Credit Union Environment

The golden rule of emergency preparedness is that it’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. Risk management is no exception. Ask yourself, when it comes to your risk management strategy, do you have the bare minimum needed to pass

Credit Union Movement

25 Years of Partnerships: Celebrating the Relationships That Strengthen Our Movement

There are certain milestones that encourage us to pause and reflect. Whether it's celebrating a member's financial achievement, recognizing a credit union’s impact in its community or marking a professional anniversary, these moments remind us of how far we've come, and how much

Leadership & Culture

Friday's Friend, Monday's Manager

On Monday morning, Maya walked into the office carrying the same coffee tumbler she’d carried for years. She parked in the same spot, laughed with the same coworkers in the hallway and sat down at the same desk she’d occupied since joining the company six years earlier. But

Money Management

Forecasting Best Practices

With the first half of the year drawing to a close, the sluggish loan demand has persisted, and it is common to see loan portfolios contracting. Budgets created in the prior year are well outside the growth actualized thus far. As a result, we are seeing an increase in requests

Risk Management

ERM: Aligning Risk Appetite with Your Strategic Objectives

Organizations take risks every day. Whether launching a new product, entering a new market or investing in technology, risk is an unavoidable part of pursuing growth and achieving strategic goals. The challenge is not eliminating risk altogether, but rather understanding how much risk an organization is willing to accept and

Marketing

To be Social or Not to be Social: How Your Credit Union Can Navigate Social Media

I started at the Corporate about two years before the launch of MySpace. And while it wasn’t the first social networking site – that title belongs to Six Degrees, which launched in 1997 – it is the first platform that most people remember, even if they never used it. However, when

Money Management

Introducing Kevin Warsh – Chairman of the Federal Reserve

Kevin Warsh became the seventeenth chair of the Federal Reserve on May 22, 2026, following his nomination by President Donald Trump to succeed Jerome Powell. He was later confirmed by the U.S. Senate. A veteran of Wall Street, the White House, central banking and academia, Warsh brings a market-

Technology

AI Is Already Influencing Your Loan Decisions. Is Your Governance Keeping Up?

AI is already a part of your lending operations. It’s screening applications, flagging risk and powering the platforms your team relies on every day. In many cases, it’s also inside your vendors’ systems, running quietly in the background of decisions your organization is ultimately responsible for. You may

Money Management

The Power of Credit Migration: Distinguishing Between Bad Loans and Misunderstood Opportunities

In credit risk, we’ve been trained to trust the score. It’s clean, simple and easy to compare. But it’s also incomplete. Ask yourself, is this B score a declining A or a rising D? A credit score is just a snapshot. It tells you where someone is

Innovation & Technology

Business Intelligence: You Know Where You're Going, But Do You Know the Best Way to Get There?

I've lived in the same area for 35 years. I know the roads. I know the shortcuts. I know which red lights seem to last forever and which route leverages the “back roads” to save time on a busy Friday afternoon. And yet, I still use my GPS

Leadership & Culture

Democratic Board Elections: Why They Matter

It’s the time of year for Vizo Financial’s annual board of directors’ election. Our election results are announced at the Annual Meeting in June. However, the process begins much earlier. At the beginning of each year, we send our call for nominations. The nominating committee then reviews the