Written by Ben Malena CMO Alopear Edition 34
For decades, checking and savings accounts sat at the center of the financial relationship. They were where paychecks landed, bills were paid, and trust was built over time. For community FIs, these products weren’t just functional — they were foundational. But the market has changed, and so has member behavior. Checking and savings haven’t disappeared, but their role has fundamentally shifted. They are no longer the anchor of engagement; they are utilities. Necessary, expected, and increasingly interchangeable.
The challenge is that utilities don’t create loyalty. They don’t drive daily interaction. And they don’t shape financial decision-making. In a digital-first economy, members gravitate toward platforms that feel active — platforms that help them understand their money, grow it, and make confident decisions in real time. When checking and savings are the primary touchpoints, engagement naturally becomes episodic and passive. Members log in to confirm balances or pay bills, then leave to do everything else somewhere more dynamic.
This shift didn’t happen overnight. It emerged as fintech platforms redefined what financial engagement could look like. Investing became accessible in seconds. Education became embedded inside the experience. Progress became visible, trackable, and motivating. Over time, members learned to associate financial value not with where money sits, but with where decisions are made. That’s the real transition underway — from account-based relationships to decision-based relationships.
Incumbent banks have recognized this shift and are responding accordingly. By embedding investing, digital assets, and real-time intelligence directly into their digital platforms, they are reframing checking and savings as part of a broader financial ecosystem rather than standalone products. Community FIs now face the same inflection point. The question is no longer whether checking and savings matter — they always will. The question is whether they can stand alone as the primary anchor in a world where engagement, insight, and action define loyalty.
The institutions that adapt to this reality will strengthen their relevance. Those that don’t will continue to see engagement migrate elsewhere — quietly, steadily, and often unnoticed until the relationship has already shifted. The end of checking and savings as the anchor isn’t a loss. It’s an invitation to build something stronger in its place.
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Checking and savings accounts were never designed to drive engagement — they were designed to store money safely. For decades, that was enough. But in a world where digital experiences shape daily behavior, passive products can no longer carry the weight of the member relationship. Checking and savings don’t adapt, don’t educate, and don’t respond in real time. They serve a purpose, but they don’t create momentum.
Engagement today is driven by interaction, feedback, and progress. Members return to platforms that help them see what’s happening, understand why it’s happening, and decide what to do next. A balance screen doesn’t provide that. A transaction history doesn’t guide behavior. And a static savings account doesn’t motivate action. As a result, members increasingly turn to external platforms for anything involving growth, insight, or learning — even if their primary FI remains the place where money technically resides.
Fintechs accelerated this shift by designing experiences that feel alive. Investing became something members could do in seconds. Education became contextual instead of theoretical. Progress became visible and rewarding. Over time, these platforms trained members to expect financial tools that respond to their behavior, not just record it. Once that expectation is set, traditional checking and savings experiences feel incomplete by comparison.
The result is a widening engagement gap. Community FIs still own the account, but they lose the interaction. And interaction is where loyalty is built. When members don’t have reasons to return frequently, the FI’s role shrinks to background infrastructure. Reversing that trend doesn’t require abandoning checking and savings — it requires surrounding them with experiences that create movement, insight, and purpose.
The shift away from checking and savings didn’t happen in a vacuum — it was engineered through experience. Fintech platforms changed the anchor by changing the starting point of the relationship. They didn’t ask members to begin with deposits or balances; they invited them to begin with action. Investing, learning, and progress tracking became the entry points, and everything else followed. That subtle change reshaped what members associate with value and relevance.
By embedding investing and education directly into the experience, fintechs made financial engagement feel personal and forward-moving. Members didn’t just see where their money was — they saw what it could become. Over time, that created a powerful behavioral shift: the platform helping members make decisions became the platform they trusted most. Checking accounts became secondary. Savings accounts became background infrastructure. The anchor moved to wherever insight and momentum lived.
Incumbent banks were slow to respond at first, but they eventually recognized the risk. As engagement migrated elsewhere, they saw deposits remain while influence slipped away. Their response has been decisive: embedding direct-investment services, digital assets, and real-time intelligence directly into their core digital experiences. This move reframes checking and savings as part of a broader system — useful, but no longer sufficient on their own.
For Credit unions, this redefinition is the inflection point. The anchor has shifted from accounts to engagement, from storage to strategy, from balances to decisions. Institutions that adapt to this reality can rebuild relevance around insight and growth. Those that don’t will continue to own accounts — but not the relationship.
Credit unions are not losing members because they lack trust, service, or local relevance. They are losing engagement because the definition of a financial relationship has changed. When the anchor shifts from checking and savings to engagement and decision-making, institutions that don’t adapt quickly find themselves pushed into the background. Members still keep accounts open, but the moments that shape loyalty — investing, learning, planning, and progress — are increasingly happening elsewhere.
This creates a dangerous asymmetry. Credit unions continue to carry the operational responsibility of deposits, compliance, and service, while external platforms capture the behavioral data and daily interaction. Over time, this erodes the credit union’s ability to personalize experiences, anticipate member needs, and guide members proactively. The relationship becomes transactional rather than advisory — present, but no longer central.
The pressure on credit unions is intensifying from both sides. Fintechs are moving up the stack, pursuing banking charters and deeper control of the financial lifecycle. At the same time, incumbent banks are embedding investing and digital asset services directly into their digital cores. Together, these forces compress the competitive window for credit unions. Waiting no longer preserves flexibility — it reduces it.
The opportunity, however, is still very real. Credit unions already have what fintechs and big banks struggle to build: trust, community presence, and long-standing member relationships. What’s missing is a modern engagement layer that transforms checking and savings from endpoints into starting points. Credit unions that move now can rebuild the anchor around intelligence, action, and growth — and reclaim their place at the center of their members’ financial lives.
This is the inflection point for community financial institutions. Engagement is migrating, fintechs are consolidating power, and incumbent banks are embedding investing directly into the core member experience. Waiting is no longer a neutral decision. Every quarter spent without modern investing and digital asset capabilities is a quarter where members form habits elsewhere — habits that are extraordinarily difficult to unwind. The institutions that move now gain time: time to learn, time to experiment, time to understand what their members actually want before competitive pressure turns strategic decisions into rushed reactions.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution in finance is no longer coming — it’s here. Investing is embedded. Assets are digital. Intelligence is real time. Community FIs that adopt now will shape their future on their own terms, using data and iteration to refine the experience before the market forces their hand. Selene Intelligence gives institutions the ability to reclaim engagement, deepen loyalty, and remain central to their members’ financial lives in a rapidly changing world.
The window to lead is still open — but it will not stay open for long.
The next 12 to 24 months will define the financial trajectory of credit unions for the next decade. Member expectations are not rising gradually — they are accelerating. As investing, digital assets, and real-time financial intelligence become embedded across fintech platforms and national banks, members will increasingly expect their primary financial institution to deliver the same level of access, insight, and guidance. This is not a hypothetical future state; it is the direction the market is already moving toward, at speed.
What makes this moment especially critical is that adoption curves are compressing. Innovations that once took years to normalize are now becoming baseline expectations in a fraction of the time. By the time a solution feels “safe” or “standard,” member behavior has already shifted. Credit unions that wait for full consensus or perfect clarity risk entering the market after habits have been formed elsewhere — when engagement, data, and trust have already migrated outside the institution.
The warning is clear: credit unions that do not adopt modern financial solutions now will not lose members all at once — they will lose relevance quietly and permanently. Members will continue to use their credit union for transactions, but they will look elsewhere for growth, learning, and decision-making. And once those higher-value interactions leave, bringing them back becomes exponentially more difficult.
This is why early adoption matters so much in this cycle. Moving now gives credit unions time — time to experiment, time to learn from real member behavior, time to refine offerings, and time to build confidence internally before innovation becomes mandatory rather than strategic. Credit unions that act early will shape the experience around their members. Those that wait will be forced to accept solutions shaped by urgency and external pressure.
This is exactly where Selene Intelligence by AlgoPear fits into the forecast. Selene gives credit unions the ability to meet this moment head-on by embedding multi-asset, real-time investing, intelligent insights, and gamified financial literacy directly into the member experience. It allows credit unions to reclaim engagement, generate meaningful data, and guide members through the financial decisions that now define loyalty.
The future of credit unions will not be decided by who has the most branches or the largest balance sheet. It will be decided by who adapts fastest to how members actually engage with money today. The window to lead is still open — but the curve is steepening fast.
Credit unions that innovate now will define the next era. Those that hesitate will spend years trying to catch up.
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