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Amarildo is head of Harness FI and, yes, he has a last name that you will hear him pronounce in the opening seconds of the podcast.  

Here's the good news about what Amarildo - a longtime Mastercard employee turned fintech exec (and he talks about that transition) - and his team are doing at Harness giving credit unions tools that let them add new powers to old credit cards.

Such as? Harness - literally in days - created a tool that allowed participating institutions to implement a program where members could opt in to allow their credit card to donate money to be dispensed in assistance for victims of California's wild fires.

They have similar tools for hurricane and tornado relief programs.

More broadly, what Harness has are tools that let credit card issuers enable members to roundup purchases to help fund local charities - participating credit unions designate the eligible charities - and also to add gamification to further help keep users using their credit cards.

It gets better. Harness requires no core access, not even access to payments systems.  Amarildo explains in the podcast how they access the information Harness needs - and he stresses that Harness houses no member card data.

Implementation at a credit union usually takes a week or two, he says. 

He also said that Harness can do everything involved in rolling out Harness at an institution - including marketing - or it can pare down its involvements for a credit union that wants to take a DIY approach.

Ask yourself this? How many credit cards issued by your institution are inert bricks in members' wallets?  Wouldn't you want to know about tools that just might bring those slabs of plastic back to life?

Listen up.

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Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It's a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto