Investing Isn't an IT Project. It's a 2027 Strategy Decision.
By Mart Vos, CEO, Eko
Your 2027 plan is almost final. If digital investing made it in at all, it's probably sitting on the tech roadmap, ranked against core upgrades and department requests.
That's the wrong list. Investing decides where your next generation of members builds their financial lives. That's a CEO decision.
Fintechs Aren't Selling Investing. They're Buying Relationships.
Robinhood, SoFi, and Acorns don't make their money on a member's first $25 investment. They use it to get in the door, then add savings, a debit card, and direct deposit perks until they own the relationship.
A brokerage like Vanguard or Fidelity takes a deposit. A fintech like Chime and Robinhood takes the member relationship.
Credit unions that offer investing in-house keep what matters: the checking account, the cash not yet invested, and the distributions when members sell. Across four credit unions, from $50M to $5B in assets, that launched with Eko, investing members logged in 3.8x more often, deposits grew 11%, and retention was 6x better.
Engagement, deposits, retention. That's your strategic plan that we want to align to.
Four Questions to Ask Before Planning Closes
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Where are our members investing today?
You can't manage a risk you haven't measured. I think I should give credit to John Doerr here. -
Who aren't we serving?
Credit union wealth programs typically reach the top 1% of your net-worth members who are nearing retirement. Members who will grow with your credit union, including your youngest members, have no option but to look elsewhere for investment services. -
What does another year cost?
Every month of delay means more automated transfers building loyalty somewhere else. Primary relationships rarely come back. -
Who owns it?
If investing lives with digital or wealth management, it gets judged on effort. Give it to the executive accountable for growth, and judge it on growth.
Bring One Number to the Meeting
Before your next planning session, ask your team for a 1-year outflow analysis. Pull 12 months of outbound ACH to brokerages like Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, and fintech apps like Robinhood, Acorns, Betterment, and SoFi. Try to capture transaction volume and the age of the account holder.
This single report will tell a story no CEO wants to see: your youngest members are building their financial lives elsewhere, and your checking account is acting as the conduit to build it. Many credit unions find twice as many monthly transfers going to fintech apps, and these members tend to skew from 25-45 years old.
This single number will provide a good idea of exactly how many relationships are already walking out the door, due to digital experience that is hard to match.
Decide It at the Top
Your credit union already has what fintechs spend heavily to imitate: trust, fair pricing, and real relationships. What's missing is a place for members to start investing inside the app they already trust and use.
That no longer takes a core integration or a long IT project. Eko connects at the digital banking layer and launches in weeks. The only hard part is making the call.
Connect with Eko, and we'll help you run your outflow analysis before planning wraps.
