Disturbance and Transformation: The Future for Your Members and Your Credit Union

The Swoboda Research Centre welcomes its members and anyone interested in the future of credit unions to participate in Owning the Future, a conference in Manchester on 24 November 2023. This event aims to stretch credit union thinking about the extent of required change in the digital era, and the business and operational transformation that will need to be undertaken. This is NOT an ‘IT’ event.

The last decade has seen most credit unions adopt online banking and smartphone apps, and many now use open banking for loan underwriting. Some are starting to take advantage of ‘API’-based technology. But this is just the beginning of digital, accelerated by forms of AI: members will expect financial and other services to be real-time, all the time, everywhere, seamless, personalised and predictive. The rapidity and depth of change will be profound.

The conference programme is being shaped to maximise both input from speakers and interaction between delegates. The morning session is designed to stretch the thinking of attendees about the breadth and depth of the change they will experience, with keynotes from author and recovering academic and banker Dr Leda Glyptis and data and inclusion ‘pracademic’ Professor Karen Elliott. Leda and Karen will be joined by tech and strategy experts Shân Millie and Paul Rooney for a panel session, before a facilitated small group peer discussion. In the afternoon, a panel of credit union leaders will talk about how they are tackling, or want to tackle, these long-term changes. George Hofheimer from the US, formerly of Filene Research Institute, and now co-founder of The Strategy Circle, will also help attendees work out a strategic response to the issues of the day in an extended, participative session. This conference will be in-person only.

The event is aimed at anyone involved in the strategic leadership and management of credit unions – chairs, directors, CEOs / executives. Stakeholders with an interest in sustaining the critical role that credit unions play in the financial service ecosystem in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere.