MSU Federal Credit Union is piloting a “financial concierge,” solution to build banking relationships with its members, and plans to launch the program soon.

The solution is an effort to build relationships with younger customers who no longer visit bank branches, said Benjamin Maxim, assistant vice president of digital strategy and innovation at the East Lansing, Mich.-based credit union, during this week’s Bank Automation Ignite. With $5.7 billion in assets, MSU Federal is the third-largest credit union in Michigan.

“We lost that kind of sense of relationship … that comes from coming into a business every other Friday to deposit your paycheck,” Maxim said during a BA Ignite Ideas session, a Ted Talk-style presentation that explored the topic of automation within financial services. “You get to know people, you’d watch them, you know, grow. They bring in their kids and their kids would grow up, and you get to know a little bit more about them as a family, what they’re up to, you have deeper conversations, simply for the fact that you’re with each other.”

While relationships have been a core value proposition for credit unions for years, roughly 30% of MSU’s membership now resides more than 30 miles from a branch, and 14% live outside of Michigan entirely. Digital relationships have become key to retaining these members, Maxim said.

The credit union’s financial concierge helps grow digital relationships with its members by leveraging banking data and asking questions of members in order to make personalized financial recommendations for them, Maxim said. The tool may prove especially useful to connect with the generation of younger members who don’t even order pizza with a phone call, he said.

The bank also leverages its AI-based chatbot — named Fran after the credit union’s first female CEO — to support customers who contact MSU’s call center.

“The companies that are winning are the ones that are building those digital relationships — they figured out the secret sauce,” Maxim said. “We started using digital as a way to bridge that human-digital divide, and really use digital to bring in human experience together.”

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