Why Going Far Means Going Together with CUSOs

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

That old proverb isn’t just a nice motivational quote for a boardroom wall; it is the core philosophy driving NACUSO CEO Randy Salser as he reflects on his first year leading the organization. Joining The Credit Union Connection host Sarah Snell Cooke, Salser breaks down how credit unions can leverage the CUSO framework to compete against fintech juggernauts, mega-banks, and retail giants without sacrificing their collaborative spirit.

From surgical advocacy on Capitol Hill aimed at updating the 40-year-old 1% investment cap to sharing high-level tech talent like Chief Data Officers across mid-sized institutions, the CUSO model is proving to be the ultimate secret weapon. Instead of letting Wall Street put a moat around innovative startups, credit unions are grabbing a seat at the cap table and building the future of financial services together.

Catch the full conversation to learn why modernizing your tech stack starts in the C-suite, how small regional roundtables are sparking big operational breakthroughs, and why joining forces is the best way to keep your credit union ahead of the curve.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Hello and welcome everybody. I am Sarah Snell Cooke, your host here at The Credit Union Connection. I am joined today by Randy Salser. Welcome.

Randy Salser: Thank you, Sarah. It’s great to be here. It’s always good to see you.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, great to see you. Good to have you on here. And of course, you’re now about one year in as CEO at NACUSO.

Randy Salser: Yeah. It’s been fun, been a good ride. We actually were talking last week with our board chair, Nick Evans from Circle, and I was like, “Man, you realize it’s coming up on a year.” He’s like, “It’s a year already?” And I said, “I know. I thought the same thing as we looked around, and here it is October already. We’re almost there.”

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, tell us a little bit about your first year and what’s changed. I know you guys have done some advocacy work, which wasn’t necessarily NACUSO’s focus in the past. Reimagine has been reimagined. Things like that. I’ll just let you free roll.

Randy Salser: No, it’s been great. Really, where we’ve gotten more focused on what we do, we’re a smaller organization. Our advocacy work is pretty surgical in what we do. We really focus on the 1% investment capital rule so federal credit unions can effectively invest 1% of their assets in NACUSO, or an organization that then becomes a CUSO if they invest.

And so that rule’s been in place for over 40 years. Obviously, banking and the way that we transact business has changed dramatically in that time. Things like the internet came along, and so those things have literally just been 1%. And so we’ve been up on the Hill—we just went last week during America’s Credit Unions Congressional Caucus and hiked the Hill and spoke to a lot of the offices.

It’s our sixth time going up, and we have a lot of momentum. In almost every office we’ve spoken to—literally 100%—they get it. They understand. And they always say, “Okay, what’s the right number?” We went in to have the dialogue with them around, let’s just remove the cap, right? These men and women that run these institutions already have a prudential regulator that has an exam cycle of 12 months. Let their own balance sheets with their executive team and their board handle it, and then if there’s concentration risk or anything like that, the examiners will find that. Really, we did that so that we could have the discussion about the actual rule. The number was not what I wanted to focus on.

If we go in and say, “We wanna remove the cap from 1% to 5%,” all you spend time doing is talking about the number. I just didn’t wanna talk about the number on the front end; we just wanna talk about the substance of the rule and whether we need it, and everybody got that.

Now, ultimately, we’ll come back to a rule, and it’s probably somewhere in the 5 to 10% range that we’ll go back to the Hill with. But working with the offices in Congress is just to try to get some more leverage for these credit unions to participate with some of these technology companies and commercial business lending CUSOs, giving them the ability to invest.

That’s one piece. But it’s not for an exit in the long run. This is what we spent a lot of our time talking about on Capitol Hill—it’s really so they have a seat at the table. A lot of these newer fintechs come into the space and say, “Hey, we got this great product. Look at how great it works.” It does inside that vacuum of a sandbox that has Jack Henry Core, Q2 Online Banking, and Meridian Link LOS. But then when it goes to the other 3,900 credit unions and it’s a different tech stack, it doesn’t always seamlessly work. So when they have a seat at the table, on the cap table as an investor, they’re creating together.

The greatest part about that is when they create, it’s better for the whole industry, right? It just goes to large credit unions, small credit unions, whoever it is, as they’re creating the new technology—staying inside credit union land and not saying, “Ah, can’t work in this space. Let me just go get a check from Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan, and he’ll put a moat around them and keep them away from credit unions.”

So that’s the most powerful piece: that we’re creating together as part of that process. And it’s been really fun. Traditionally, we’ve done some advocacy work, but it’s really been Brian Lauer, our general counsel, doing a ton of stuff up there. He’s probably the smartest person I’ve met in this space when it comes to CUSOs. But he comes with us on all of those Hill hikes, and now we also tell the story as the organization. We’re doing podcasts and webinars and a lot of education around this CUSO framework as just another tool in the toolbox, right?

It’s not my job to say, “Hey, you should definitely do a CUSO.” My job is to say, “You should know about this CUSO framework.” And then whether they choose to utilize that framework—like I said, the men and women that run these institutions, we’re far from the Baptist Church Credit Union that’s only open on Sundays, right? We’re pretty sophisticated financial institutions these days, and they need as many tools in the toolbox to compete.

It really gained a ton of momentum because of the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act, because stablecoins are a big use case. This certainly isn’t a stablecoin bill that we’re looking to get introduced, but you can easily see, right? Credit unions can custody stablecoins, but they can’t issue stablecoins, so they need to do it likely through that CUSO framework, PPSI. But it makes the most sense that the PPSI is a CUSO as well.

So who could have scale only being able to utilize 1%, right? If you’re competing with the Amazons and the Walmarts of the world, right? Walmart could say, “Hey, I’ll issue a stablecoin and give you 20% off your grocery bill,” or in my case, my hunting bill. I do all my hunting shopping at Walmart, so I would do that. But we don’t have scale. Navy Federal wouldn’t have scale to compete against somebody who has billions of dollars in cash just sitting there, like the Amazons, Apples, and SoFis of the world. So it was easy for members of Congress to understand, okay, yes, we do need that, and then we utilize that to progress the bill forward.

So that’s the biggest focus, has been the advocacy work. There’s a lot of momentum. We also relaunched our website. We’re doing a ton of educational podcasts and webinars to just really have a kind of one-stop shop for education around CUSOs and these technologies that are out there.

But traditional CUSOs are where we’re seeing a ton of momentum as well—the commercial business lending CUSOs, the member business lending CUSOs. Some of the shared services have been exponential because of all of this AI that’s coming into the space and the technology that’s there. Can a—or maybe even should a—$600 million credit union have a data scientist or a CTO? We’re talking $250,000 to $300,000 a year employees. Or a chief data officer, yeah, another perfect example. Maybe we could share that amongst four or five credit unions, right? There’s some great CISOs out there, like Pure IT and some of these others that are doing these things. Why not do that on a shared level? So we’re seeing a lot of rise in that as well.

So all good so far, and I’m excited. Now the conference just launched, and so back at it again.

Sarah Snell Cooke: And yeah, ’cause it was around that time that you joined.

Randy Salser: Oh, yeah. It was like learning by fire hose, as they say. Having participated in a lot of conferences in my days at NAFCU, I never got into the tactical day-to-day death by a million cuts that happens during pre-prepping for a conference. So I’m lucky to have Vivian and Rina and a few folks on the team that have done this and understand it. They’re asking me questions, and I’m like, “I’m not qualified. What do you think?” I have opinions, but that’s literally all they are. I’ve been on the other side—I just participate in conferences; I’ve never actually executed one. So a ton of respect for those folks that have to do it on a day-to-day basis, because it’s really tough.

We have done some round tables this year, which is really fun. 600 people in an audience is one thing, but when you have 25 people at a smaller regional round table, that’s just fun to me. Everybody talks about collaboration, but man, when you sit in a room with 25 people—everybody talks about growth all the time and wanting to get millennials and all these other things—what I see a ton when they’re together is, “How do you guys handle this problem? Here’s what we’re dealing with. Have you guys done this?” And every time they’re like, “Oh yeah, we did that. Here’s what we did,” or “Don’t do this ’cause it cost us a quarter of a million dollars trying this.” So they share ideas; it’s amazing. I came from the insurance space, and we never shared information like we do in credit unions. I just love it, and it’s deepened my appreciation of what this industry really is because it’s people working together and collaborating. It’s not just a slogan or something that sounds good on the press clips. It’s real, and I get to see it every day. So it’s been a lot of fun so far.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, and I think it’s great that we’re having a kind of resurgence of CUSOs as critical pieces of the credit union puzzle for success, because it does bring back that collaborative foundation as you were talking about.

One of the things, obviously, is the fintechs coming in. They either become a CUSO or spin off a CUSO so credit unions can invest in them and have a say in them. I think it’s also an off-balance-sheet revenue stream that a credit union can help stabilize against interest rate fluctuations, which are all over the place.

Randy Salser: Yeah. Everything’s under attack, right? Like interchange—every non-interest income piece of your balance sheet and income statement is under attack by the banks, by the merchants, by somebody else. So it just gives some flexibility to be able to compete, and then better serve your members, which is ultimately all we’re really trying to do.

It’s just a different model where our goal is to try to help the community, not try to make a bunch of money for Wall Street investors. There’s a totally different business plan, but we still need to make money to keep the lights on and be able to serve our members and do these things. And so that’s where this flexibility or tool in the toolbox—the CUSO framework—comes in.

There’s so much creativity that you’re able to do on a shared basis, and you have just much more power. I saw this quote early on that was like, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This is such a perfect analogy for what we do in credit union land.

So it’s been fun to see some of these newer fintechs come in—young, bright minds, 24-year-olds fresh out of Stanford or Columbia or wherever, saying, “Hey, I think I like this industry, man. They really are doing the right thing. I wanna be a part of it. How can we work together?” Here you go; this is a perfect opportunity to do that. And it’s been so much fun to help shape and mold and put people together, which is what usually happens at our conference. We’ve seen multiple different companies come out of our conference where CUSOs are together, or a credit union and a CUSO are there together and say, “Hey, we’re working on this.” “Oh, we could help with that. Let’s do it together.” And then all of a sudden there’s this new CUSO that comes out of it.

Trust & Will is a perfect example of, “Oh, we can do this as a CUSO. Credit unions could really help on this aspect.” And so it’s just been really fun.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, and the CUSO model too is so important because as we move forward in modernizing, there’s just so much expertise that’s so expensive. To put it in a CUSO—we were talking earlier about sharing a chief data officer, even something simple as that. Really, the credit union people are doing the brain work, and things like AI and other technologies are coming in that they wouldn’t be able to afford on their own.

Obviously, there are business partners that offer that, but having a CUSO where you really have control over how things are going—how important do you think that is versus using another type of business partner?

Randy Salser: I think it’s essential because you’re able to be at the actual table. It’s not just a vendor relationship where you say, “Hey, I have some insight, I have some input. I need some help,” and they say, “Okay, we’ll get you in the pipeline as a vendor.” Two years later, all of a sudden you’re like, “I’m on the cap table, so we should probably be talking a little sooner than that.”

And it’s this joint effort that’s there, particularly on the unknowns. That’s the piece that could be scary and existential—here’s AI, right? All of a sudden SoFi comes along, who’s been here for a while, but they opened more checking accounts last year than the entire credit union industry combined, thanks to Cornerstone Research.

23% came from credit unions. That’s scary, right? Now, are they onboarding? Are they doing all those things? I’m not so sure, but that’s something we really need to look at. This is where we should be doing some of these pieces of technology together.

AI is more than here, but what’s the expense related to tokens, or what’s the expense related to having 1,000 bots inside your organization burning tokens? That’s an expense that’s literally unknown, right? And so we have this fear—Uber was around for 10 years, but it felt like it took over overnight in New York, and the medallions were gone and all of a sudden had zero value. It’s all here, and we’ve got that trusted relationship with our members. You can’t quite disintermediate that, but speed and a frictionless environment are quickly taking the place of some of that trust. My kids don’t spend time going, “Oh, I’ll give my data to Zelle or Venmo,” just because it’s faster. You ask my son, who’s 21, and he would tell you that his bank is Square Cash, right? That’s because he transacts and sends money back and forth via Venmo or Square, whichever one it is.

So I just think that we should know that it’s there and have a plan around that. The easiest and probably the most sensible way is via that CUSO because you can do it together. And that’s the piece that’s so powerful for this industry.

Sarah Snell Cooke: And I think, too, that takes a different type of leadership at the credit unions. Vendor management means so much more when you rely so heavily on them. Yes, everybody’s always relied heavily on their core, and just recently there was a problem with one that had issues. But now you rely heavily on everything outside. You’ve got your people who are managing that relationship with whatever vendor or CUSO it is, but it’s a different way of leaning on credit unions. There’s also the human side that’s really important, because there are people who used to manage people, and now they manage some bot or something.

Randy Salser: That’s right. And hopefully that frees them up to do the more human things. Trent Gillespie was our keynote speaker—he’s from an AI company called Stellis—and his whole perspective was that AI development starts in the C-suite, because you’re the one who has to set the guardrails, set the expectations, and set the accountabilities so that you’re not gonna put PII into Claude, right?

If you just have a policy that says, “We’re not gonna use Claude or ChatGPT,” that’s a good policy, but your staff is still going to, because it’s exponentially efficient for them to go do it on their personal computer to get things done. So you might as well lean in and say, “Okay, let me have a policy around this, and let’s have an overall culture of trying to lean into this AI” and ask, “How can we get better at serving our members? What’s one problem? What’s two issues? How can we pick off some low-hanging fruit to say, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re doing with AI,'” because it creates huge economies of scale for the member. And they expect it. They want the Amazon or Starbucks experience.

How easy is it to go spend $4 on a cup of coffee? Every time I do it, I’m like, “Ah, this is exhausting.” But man, it’s so easy to just use the app, show up, pick up coffee, and go. They expect that same experience when they’re using their money. And so that’s what we’re competing with as well. We’re not just competing with the community banks around us in the local ZIP code. It’s every single merchant retail experience—they’re expecting that same thing from us. Partnering with these technology companies is going to help us get there faster.

Many are already there, by the way. I don’t mean to say that there’s not a lot of credit unions who are already doing this, but it’s just coming at such a rapid pace. Every other day, there’s a new model, a new technology, a new something out there, and that makes our heads spin a little bit. Which shiny object do we chase next? That CUSO framework gives us the ability to sit down and do this, or even assess some of these companies.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yes, exactly. You need a CUSO just for doing that.

Randy Salser: Absolutely.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Because if you don’t know what they’re doing technically, you don’t know if they’re doing it well. If this widget’s blue and this company has their widget red, you don’t know.

Anyway, I know we’re getting close to the end of our time together. I always allow my guests to have final thoughts. What would you like to leave our audience with today?

Randy Salser: We just launched our Reimagine conference, which is in March next year. We work with two companies that help us execute that—Mission Brand and Milk—and they’re great at helping us with the marketing and execution of this stuff. Of course, Vivian has been executing that conference for many years.

It’s the education around this stuff, so I’d love credit unions to really engage on the new CUSO, whether they come to the conference or not. There’s a lot of education out there now, including podcasts and webinars just to understand. There are a lot of different structures in CUSOs these days—there are CUSO holding companies that credit unions are starting, which has been a really cool dynamic. So learning more and leaning in is what I would love.

It’s not for me to say, “Hey, you should do a CUSO.” It’s for me to say, “Here’s as much information as I can give you about this CUSO framework. I’d love for you to engage with it and see whether it should be on the strategic planning table as a tool in the toolbox.”

We’re going to build curriculum around the CUSO models and the frameworks, but it all benefits credit unions. So I’d love for credit unions to lean in. We’ve got 1,200 CUSOs from about 500 credit unions. So there are another 3,500 credit unions that don’t, or maybe don’t even know, or haven’t had the opportunity, or have a million other moving parts and just don’t have the time, which I get as well.

Partnering with CUSOs is another great tool. You don’t have to invest in a CUSO to work with them, right? You can partner with them. For me, it’s just about education. So come to our conference, come to one of our regional round tables, engage on the website with podcasts and webinars, and consider becoming a member. Our membership is very low-cost. Our advocacy work is surgical—it’s $1,400 for non-CUSOs, $995 a year for credit unions and CUSOs. We don’t do a huge amount with the tax exemption or Credit Card Competition Act; we partner with the leagues and America’s Credit Unions to do those types of things. We cheer and sign letters with them, but they do all of that heavy lifting. We like to play offense, like changing the 1% investment cap and letting credit unions do more. Unfortunately, we’re playing a little defense on third-party vendor oversight right now, but we’re in partnership with the leagues and America’s Credit Unions and everybody else on that one.

Just engage—that’s really my ask.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Awesome. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Randy. Have a great day.

Randy Salser: As always. Thanks, Sarah.