How To Turn Partnerships Into Growth

Jim Marous (0:01)

Nobody punches above their asset size by accident. Chartway Credit Union has $3.2 billion in assets, and yet pulled $2 million in new deposits in under 45 days, cut manual fraud reviews by 40%, and moved to new solution in the production testing in under two weeks. All of that came from something a lot of us still run as a procurement exercise, selecting solution provider partnerships. Chartway starts with what members are asking for, and then finds the solution partners who can remove friction, personalize the engagement, and move at the speed the organization requires and the members expect. Esteban Guerra told me things that used to take six to nine months now takes weeks. 85% of Chartway's 265,000 members bank through their mobile app, and that's roughly 1.7 million logins every month. At that volume, digital has become the relationship channel rather than the support channel, and every solution partner they select either strengthens that relationship or is replaced. In this discussion, we get into how our smaller institution chooses partners, how member feedback becomes the road map they hand to their vendors, and where the real limit on transformation sits.

This is part of the Experience Factor, our special series with Q2, where I talk with consumer banking experts and financial institution leaders about how account horror experience and engagement drive long-term success. We recorded this one at Q2's Connect 2026 in Austin, Texas.

So, Esteban, let's start from the beginning. You've been with the organization, I think, seven years, correct?

Esteban Guerra (1:53)

That is correct.

Jim Marous (1:54)

And what has made the whole transition or the whole focus going towards a digital organization? When did that start and how did that focus start?

Esteban Guerra (2:05)

Absolutely, Jim. So what we saw was a shift. Members were, well, we saw growth.

Members were adopting, but they were also engaging more digitally. Just for context, we see approximately 1.7 million logins per month in our digital banking platform.

Jim Marous (2:33)

That's awfully big for a $3 billion organization.

Esteban Guerra (2:36)

Yeah.

Jim Marous (2:36)

How many members do you have?

Esteban Guerra (2:38)

We have 265,000 members. And we're now at a $3.2 billion in assets.

Jim Marous (2:49)

That's pretty exciting when you look at that number. And obviously, that takes a leadership mentality. You really have to figure out what your North Star is and what your leadership is going to take you towards.

What did that feel like at the beginning? You were pretty much there at the beginning of where organizations really said we have to do digital transformation, which we now talk about AI transformation and other things. But to make that move, what did you need to do first? What was your first initiative? Was it data? Was it back office? Was it front office, customer experience, member experience? What was it actually?

Esteban Guerra (3:25)

I think it was creating an ecosystem, setting the right path for everything to flow correctly. So we could create an in-app experience for our members.

Member experience for us is extremely important. So we didn't just want to serve transactions through digital banking. We wanted to create an experience and allow them to essentially complete all of their needs through the platform.

Jim Marous (4:01)

When we talk about digital transformation, one of the first places organizations usually start with is, I got to get growth.

But to do that, you really have to make it easier for people to bank with you. We make it notoriously difficult for people in small businesses to bank with us. We make it so they almost have to come into a branch. But you really looked at that as an opportunity. How do you do that in conjunction with Q2s?

Esteban Guerra (4:25)

Yeah, great question. Through our partnership with Q2, we are fans of their Innovation Studio. It is a place where we can search for new partners, and based on what we hear from our members, because we've done this, we've actually surveyed our members.

We serve them, so we want to understand what they're looking for in the app. So by surveying them, we can intentionally create a roadmap, and from there, go to the Innovation Studio, see what's available, and reach out to those partners.

Jim Marous (5:06)

So when you're working with partners, you set the priorities, you figure out what you need to fulfill on, what you need to solve. How do you select the partners and set the priorities in conjunction with the partners to know where you go?

Esteban Guerra (5:19)

Great question. So we do our due diligence.

We see what's available, we get references, we partner with other FIs, other credit unions, with a similar stack to ours, and we look for that feedback. We select partners based on our needs. So for example, 85% of our members bank through our mobile app. So we need to make sure that that partner is not creating any type of friction through the mobile experience.