The CEO Forum Group Magazine Business 2023 (1) - Flipbook - Page 35
President & CEO, Alliant Credit Union
Robert Reiss: Describe why Alliant Credit Union’s
business model is completely different than any of
the other 10,000 financial services organizations.
Dennis Devine: It’s a crowded marketplace, and
we are one of a kind as the nation’s only national,
all-digital credit union. We serve more than
800,000 customers, whom we call members, across
the country, and we do it entirely on our digital
platform—no branches. This combination makes us
a distinctive direct-to-consumer financial institution,
and our offering is particularly valuable to the CEOs
who partner with us to provide financial wellness
programs to their employees as a company benefit.
We are laser-focused on providing our members with
a user-friendly digital experience. At the same time,
not having to manage a costly branch network gives
us a competitive advantage with one of the best cost
structures in the industry. As a credit union, we have
the structural benefit of serving our members, not
shareholders, and the valuable tax benefits that come
with that structure. So, we are digitally obsessed
with an optimal cost structure and a credit union
advantage.
“Employers who want to introduce
Alliant as an employee benefit to
their staff know they can do so in
partnership with a purpose-driven
organization that will put their
employees’ needs first.”
Over the past few decades, I was fortunate to
work with some of the country’s finest financial
institutions, which had a large national distribution
of branches and other physical distribution channels.
As a digital organization, Alliant has none of that
complexity or cost overhead. We get to focus on one
dimension by asking ourselves, “How do we create
excellent digital experiences?”
The CEO Forum Group
has selected Dennis
Devine, President &
CEO, Alliant Credit
Union, for the Transformative CEO Award
as The Top 10 Businesses in America, 2023 in
the category of Credit Unions. This has been
bestowed for their vision and delivery and a new
breed of customer centric financial services.
There’s also a strong demographic trend working
in our favor: More bank branches have closed over
the last three years than in the history of banking.
People do not visit branches as much as they used
to, resulting in transaction volumes declining and
digital banking options rising. As a result, there is
an industry-wide opportunity to serve customers
digitally, and we can spend all our time on that
opportunity without the expense and complexity of
a branch network.
There’s not a financial institution in the country
that doesn’t have a digital transformation strategy
underway. The difference at Alliant is that we are on the
other side of that now, as a fully digital leader widely
recognized for our one-of-a-kind business model.
How should CEOs view Alliant?
We are a strategic financial wellness partner for
a company and its employees. Alliant’s history is
rooted in serving United Airlines employees. These
days, however, we do it for multiple companies
of many different sizes and industries across the
United States. Our number one value is to “wow”
our members: We don’t just serve our members;
we “wow” them with what we can do. For CEOs
looking to wow their employees with strong
financial wellness tools, we can help them deliver an
amazing experience with industry-leading value as a
competitive employee benefit.
www.theceoforumgroup.com The CEO Forum 33