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Credit Union Management
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from April 2004
Last Number: December 2012
ISSN 0273-9267
[Content not included in vLex Global Academic]
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Year 2007
Desert Schools Fcu Helps Immigrants Fight Fraud
Desert Schools Federal Credit Union (FCU) with 325,000 members is stepping up its local educational outreach efforts to the local immigrant population. Its goal is to help immigrants fight back against financial fraud. At Desert Schools FCU, immigrants are permitted to establish an account, which does not pay dividends or interest. All that is required to open an account is an unexpired Matricula Consular Identification Card issued after June 2002. This is an official ID card issued by the Me...
Most Credit Unions are not actively assisting their members in saving their hard-earned paychecks. Now, there are some exceptions to this rule. BECU in Seattle and Spokane Teachers Credit Union are two great examples. BECU calls its program Member Advantage and at this writing pays 7.50% APY on the first $500 of savings in selected accounts. Spokane Teachers CU has a similar program paying 6.14% APY on its First5 account. The IRS has even jumped on the bandwagon of helping people save. For th...
Management Network
Ideas, Innovation ... And Results
It is difficult to make innovation an everyday part of your life. But $123 million BestSource Credit Union (CU) has found a way to make innovation part of its culture. BestSource CU has developed an internal program called BCU-i3 with the lofty aim of making innovation part of the credit union infrastructure and culture. The idea for BCU-i3 was a spin-off of Filene Research Institute's i3 initiative, which is a work group of credit union professionals whose name stands for ideas, innovation a...
Open Forum
CUES member Sammy Clements, SVP/lending at $185 million Mutual Savings Credit Union, with 32,000 members for one, would like to move beyond those tried and true methods of unloading surrendered cars. Most of the executives who responded to Clements' query indicated they did not try to reinvent the wheel when dealing with repossessions. Experience has helped president/CEO Randy Baldwin and his crew at $150 million/18,500-member Tucson Old Pueblo Credit Union separate the repossession wheat fro...
General Management
How your credit union (CU) facilities look and function often sets the first impression for members, old and new. One reason CUs need to be professional with their facilities standards is the recognition that within the financial services market, products are commodities. When helping a CU create a new facility or review a current facility, experts encourage the CU's leaders to conduct a self-review. Be honest about your CU's vision and mission. Just as there are lots of competitors out there...
When you think of disaster preparedness, you probably think of mitigating the damage from earthquakes and floods and terrorist attacks. But there is another kind of event that can shake a credit union (CU) to its core: the departure of key members of the executive team. It is disruptive enough when one senior manager leaves; it can be a terribly heavy blow when one or more other execs depart at the same time. Sometimes a situation like this is a result of other troubles in a CU. When there is...
Human Resources
Call a credit union to ask about its dress code and you are likely to hear a soft sigh or a wry chuckle. It is a topic many credit unions wish did not exist. For starters, taste in clothing is a very personal issue and a "ditch-the-flip-flops" conversation is something managers would just as soon avoid. Some credit unions have used a show-and-tell approach to dress codes by staging fashion shows aimed at providing an actual look at appropriate and inappropriate attire. So the credit union's d...
Credit unions (CUs) have been leaders in finding ways to put technology to use. While technology can certainly impact efficiency and the need for staff, CUs are finding that the greater benefit lies in improving opportunities for providing exceptional service. When considering the use of technology to conduct business, of course, CUs must think about both the cost/benefit implications and the impact of using technology on the service provided to members. One key factor that impacts the abilit...
Board
Trade associations can get a group to the steps, but only the force of individuals, rallying supporters and financial support together, is strong enough to climb those steps as a real, lasting political force. To that end, former National Credit Union Administration Chairman Dennis Dollar stresses that individual credit union leaders must support the national lobbying efforts and must also be involved locally. Dollar advocates that individual CU leaders and volunteers take a consistent approa...
When Ben Freudenreich began working for renowned research firm Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI) in 1961, his co-workers encouraged him to join the credit union. To join such a financial institution took somewhat of a leap of faith on Freudenreich's part. Over the years, Freudenreich learned exactly what credit unions were and what they stood for. He not only joined BMI FCU, but he became one of its biggest advocates. His devoted volunteerism on behalf of the credit union and other notable ca...
Operations
Check imaging promises a significant return in efficiency and cost savings. Some credit unions are studying the value of merchant capture, or equipping business members with check scanners so they can present checks for deposit on line. Terence Roche, principal with Cornerstone Advisors, recommends that credit unions study all those options up front with the goal of developing a unified strategy for making the most of Check 21's potential. Roche recommends: 1. Quantify check volume. 2. Determ...
A lot of credit unions with alternatives to payday loans claim victory. But they still have payday lenders. The answer was to teach these borrowers how to save. So along with another CU manager, Ben Heyward, CEO of First Financial Credit Union, designed a loan product that would also be a savings program. The deal: The CU will place 80% of the fees incurred by a short-term borrower into a savings account. If the member does not go to another payday lender for a year, and takes a financial lit...
Marketing
Most people have heard about blogs, many have actually commented on a blogger's posts or at least visited a few blogging sites, and some have even established their own blogs to communicate their thoughts and ideas to anyone out there in the "blogosphere." But some experts in the expanding field of new media and social media say that is changing rapidly as more businesses begin to harness the power of new media tools like blogs, really simple syndication feeds, search engine optimization and ...
Consumers who use credit unions (CUs) overwhelmingly approve of the service they receive. Ethnography puts the researcher not just in the field, but deeply immersed in the research subject's daily life. This immersion is deeper than other interviewing methods, in that the researcher has access to the real world context for how consumers behave. The ethnographer is the novice and asks the subjects questions about their financial lives, having them explain in everyday terms how they pay bills, ...
Cues News
From The Editor
P & S
While 2006 may have seen the mainstreaming of social networking sites like MySpace, 2007 is shaping up to be the year in which professional social networking hits its stride, notes Steve Williams in his recent article, "LinkedIn and the Like" on CUES Tech Port. In the article, Williams describes three ways he sees sites like Linkedln impacting IT professionals: It will support recruiting efforts, complicate retention efforts and be another staff monitoring annoyance, as employees may choose t...