Your Members’ Money Is Disappearing. Do You Know Where It’s Going? 👻
Every payday, money arrives in your members’ accounts.
And then it starts disappearing.
A payment goes to an auto lender.
Another goes to a mortgage servicer.
Another to a credit card company.
Money moves to an investment firm, another financial institution, a fintech app, or a buy now, pay later provider.
Credit unions often look at those transactions through the lens of wallet share.
How much of the member’s financial relationship do we own?
That’s a useful question.
But in our first CU Power Report, following the money surfaced a much more interesting one:
Where does your member have to leave your credit union to live their financial life?
Because the money leaving a credit union can tell us two very different stories.
One is about the credit union’s opportunity.
The other is about the member’s financial condition.
And the CU Power work reinforced just how important it is to understand both.
Follow the Money
One of the first lenses we applied in the CU Power Report was outbound ACH activity.
Why?
Because credit unions already know a tremendous amount about what members do inside their institution.
We know their checking balances.
Savings.
Auto loans.
Mortgages.
Credit cards.
Credit scores.
Delinquency.
Those measures tell us a lot about the relationship the member has with the credit union.
But outbound transactions can reveal another part of the story:
What is happening outside the credit union?
In the CU Power Report, we could see millions of dollars flowing to outside financial providers—large banks, credit card issuers, mortgage companies, P2P providers and other institutions.
That wasn't simply leakage.
It was a map of where members were going to live portions of their financial lives.
Imagine a member whose paycheck lands in your checking account every two weeks.
You can see the income arrive.
But you might also see:
$620 going to an outside auto lender
$1,850 going to a mortgage servicer
$275 going to a credit card issuer
$150 moving to an investment company
Payments going to another bank or credit union
Recurring payments to a fintech or BNPL provider
Individually, they're transactions.
Together, they begin to describe the member's financial ecosystem.
And when we connect those transactions to the other measures inside CU Power, they can tell us something even more valuable.
They can begin to describe the member's financial condition.
Not Every Dollar Leaving Is a Lost Sale
Traditional wallet-share analysis might look at those payments and say:
Opportunity!
Can we refinance the auto loan?
Can we capture the mortgage?
Can we bring the credit card relationship here?
Can we retain those investment dollars?
Absolutely.
The CU Power Report identified meaningful competitive outflows that could represent opportunities to deepen member relationships.
But stopping there would miss half the story.
Because sometimes that $620 auto payment isn't primarily telling us that the credit union missed an auto loan.
It may be telling us that transportation is consuming a significant portion of the member's available income.
That $275 credit card payment might represent a balance-transfer opportunity.
Or it might be evidence of growing debt pressure.
Payments to BNPL providers might represent potential lending opportunities.
Or they may be another signal that the member is stretching today's income to cover yesterday's purchases.
The transaction is the same.
The meaning may be completely different.
That distinction becomes much clearer when competitive outflow is considered alongside the CU Power Core 7.
Growth Signal or Member Financial Signal?
This is one of the most important ideas reinforced by the CU Power Report.
When money leaves the institution, ask two questions.
1. What does this tell us about the relationship?
Is there a product or service the member is obtaining elsewhere that the credit union could provide?
That's a growth opportunity.
But then ask:
2. What does this tell us about the member?
Does the payment reveal something about the member's ability to afford transportation, housing, debt, savings or everyday life?
That's a member financial signal.
And that's where the Core 7 becomes particularly useful.
CU Power examines member financial life across:
Emergency Savings.
Debt Resilience.
Transportation.
Housing.
Long-Term Financial Security.
Credit Health.
Financial Confidence.
Now the transaction isn't being viewed in isolation.
It has context.
And that turns competitive-spend analysis from a marketing exercise into something much more powerful:
Member intelligence.
Think About the Auto Payment Differently
Suppose you identify 5,000 members making recurring payments to outside auto lenders.
The traditional analysis might calculate potential loan balances, estimate refinancing opportunities, build a campaign and measure conversion.
Nothing wrong with that.
In fact, our first CU Power Report identified competitive outflow as an important opportunity for exactly this kind of activation.
But CU Power adds another question:
What does this payment tell us about transportation stability?
Now we might examine the auto payment relative to estimated income.
We might look for members with multiple auto payments.
We might consider whether the member has enough liquid savings to absorb an unexpected repair.
We might examine other debt obligations.
We might look at whether other financial pressures are increasing at the same time.
Suddenly, we aren't simply identifying members who have an auto loan somewhere else.
We're beginning to understand whether transportation is financially sustainable for them.
That creates a very different conversation.
Instead of only asking:
“How do we capture this loan?”
We can also ask:
“Could we improve this member's financial position?”
Sometimes the action might still be refinancing the loan.
But now success isn't measured only by whether the credit union booked another loan.
It could also be measured by whether the intervention lowered the member's monthly obligation and returned capacity to their household budget.
That's the difference between capturing wallet share and creating member impact.
The Same Is True for Housing
A recurring mortgage payment to another institution certainly represents potential competitive leakage.
But CU Power asks us to put that payment into the context of housing stability.
How much of the member's estimated income is going toward housing?
Are savings balances building alongside the housing obligation—or declining?
Is other debt increasing?
Does the member appear financially resilient after the housing payment leaves the account?
Again, we're moving beyond:
Who has the mortgage?
Toward:
What is housing doing to the member's financial life?
That distinction matters.
One of the Most Interesting Findings in the CU Power Report
This became especially clear when we looked across the Core 7.
A member can appear perfectly healthy through traditional measures.
They may be current on every loan.
They may have a good credit score.
They may actively use their checking account.
They may even report being satisfied with their credit union.
And yet another measure may reveal vulnerability.
In the first CU Power Report, for example, 84.3% of measurable members appeared resilient from a debt perspective.
But when we examined emergency savings, 54% of measurable members had less than $400 available.
Those two findings belong in the same conversation.
Because a member can be:
Paying today.
But not necessarily:
Prepared for tomorrow.
And an outside auto payment, rising credit card obligation or changing transaction pattern may become much more meaningful when we know the member has very little financial cushion behind it.
That is the power of connecting the signals.
Your Biggest Competitor May Not Be Who You Think
Ask a credit union to name its competitors and you'll probably hear familiar names.
Large banks.
Other credit unions.
Fintechs.
Digital lenders.
But the CU Power lens suggests another way to think about competition.
Your members don't experience their financial lives in neat product categories.
Their paycheck is competing with their mortgage.
Their grocery bill is competing with their savings goal.
Their auto payment is competing with their ability to pay down a credit card.
Their insurance premium is competing with their retirement contribution.
And sometimes the most important competition isn't another financial institution competing for the member.
It's another financial obligation competing for the member's money.
That is a very different definition of competitive intelligence.
From Wallet Share to Member Financial Capacity
The first CU Power Report brought together transaction behavior, traditional credit union data, member experience measures and the Core 7 to ask a more fundamental question:
What can the data a credit union already has tell us about whether members are becoming financially stronger?
Not just:
Did deposits grow?
Did we book the loan?
Did the member pay on time?
Did NPS increase?
Those measures still matter.
But CU Power adds another layer:
What changed in the member's financial life?
Did they build a financial cushion?
Did their debt position improve?
Did transportation become more affordable?
Did housing remain sustainable?
Did their credit health strengthen?
Did their long-term financial security improve?
And, critically:
Did something the credit union did help create that change?
That's where member impact becomes measurable.
You May Already Have More of the Story Than You Think
One of the encouraging lessons from building the first CU Power Report is that credit unions don't necessarily need to begin with an entirely new technology stack.
They can begin with a much simpler question:
What can the data we already have prove?
ACH transactions can reveal recurring outside financial obligations.
Deposit data can provide signals about liquidity.
Loan data can tell us about internal debt obligations and payment performance.
Credit information can help us understand credit health.
Income signals can provide context for affordability.
Member surveys can add financial confidence and experience.
None of those datasets tells the whole story alone.
But when we connect them, something changes.
We stop seeing a collection of products, accounts and transactions.
We start seeing a member navigating a financial life.
So Follow the Money
The next time you analyze outbound ACH transactions, don't stop after identifying which institutions are receiving your members' money.
Ask what the money represents.
Ask whether it reveals an opportunity for the credit union.
Then connect it to what else you know about the member.
And ask one more question:
What does this tell us about the member's ability to get ahead?
Because some of the money leaving your credit union represents competitive opportunity.
Some represents financial pressure.
And sometimes, it's both.
That's one of the biggest lessons emerging from the CU Power Report.
The opportunity isn't simply to capture more of the member's wallet.
It's to understand more of the member's financial life—and then use that understanding to identify where the credit union can make a measurable difference.
Your members' money isn't really disappearing.
It's leaving clues. 👻
And CU Power is helping credit unions learn how to follow them.
Click 👆🏻 on the image to schedule a conversation to learn more.
Credit unions do meaningful work every day—but those stories often live in silos.
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