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CO-OP Financial Services Blog: Insight Vault

Archive for March, 2010

Mar 29

Playing the Field…of Membership

General / by Caroline Lane Senior Vice President, Business Development and Marketing

Until April 15, 2010, credit unions have an opportunity to comment on NCUA’s “Field of Membership” rule. The agency hopes to streamline its admittedly cumbersome, ambiguous rule for obtaining a community charter. Some of the ambiguity can be traced back to 1998, when Congress passed H.R. 1151, the Credit Union Membership Access Act, which included a requirement that community credit unions be “local.”

While you’re considering whether to weigh in during this comment period, I would challenge you to also consider what it takes for a credit union to truly benefit from being granted a community charter. Whether you’re one of the many shops that have made this move in the last decade or you’re just now taking the plunge, a few concepts ring true:

  • It’s an opportunity, not a gold rush: Since the start of the financial crisis in 2007, 205 banks and 33 credit unions have failed. Much has been said about what this shake-up will mean for the survivors. While it’s true that the flurry of bank closures has damaged consumers’ trust level for banks, competition for a share of their financial services wallet remains fierce. Especially in densely-populated metropolitan areas, it takes a sound strategy to thrive.
  • Access and convenience rule: Financial guru Suze Orman has had some great things to say about credit unions lately, but she cites the smaller size of credit unions’ ATM networks as a downside (check out Suze Orman on Credit Unions). Of course, as a reader of CO-OP Financial Services’ Insight Vault, you’re savvier than that. You know that you can serve a community well by tapping into CO-OP Network, the nationwide network of 28,000 surcharge-free ATMs, many of them deposit taking, and 4,000 CO-OP Shared Branching locations.

Regardless of what happens with the NCUA rule on the field of membership issue, one thing is certain: Credit unions play an important role in providing affordable financial services to more than 90 million Americans, and CO-OP Financial Services is proud to be a part of this ongoing success story.

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Mar 22

CU Industry Speakers Help Drive THINK 2010

THINK CONFERENCE / by Samantha Paxson Vice President, Marketing

The THINK 2010 Conference from CO-OP Financial Services is now only four weeks away. If you have not registered we urge you to do so at your earliest convenience here. It’s free to credit unions!

We have six true visionaries lined-up to speak on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 20 and 21. At THINK 2010, we are focusing on doing more with less. How can we remove the “recession negativity” that we’ve all been sucked into and recognize the great opportunities for credit unions? We are on the precipice of a financial renaissance. Now is the time to learn from leaders who can teach us how to exploit our greatest strengths and lift our memberships to their greatest potential.

You should hear just how good Ken Auletta, Bob Herbold, Tony Hsieh, Tim Sanders, Peter Sealey and Dave Schembri really are! Listen to the podcasts here.

The headliners are definitely these six fine speakers. Yet, there’s more! We want to make sure you are also aware of our industry speakers for Sunday and Monday, April 18 and 19.

Our six industry sessions are being led by experts with specific experience in the credit union industry, in disciplines that include technology, marketing, social media, member relations and regulatory issues. Every speaker has at least 20 years of experience in the movement. Combined, literally centuries worth of knowledge will be available to you.

We are repeating our six industry sessions both days. Depending on your other commitments or day of arrival, you can conveniently attend any of the sessions you are interested in.

And, the industry topics are important, indeed, for anyone in the credit union industry. They include:

  • “Payment Trends – What’s Next in CU Payments Technologies,” presented by Terence Roche, principal, Cornerstone Advisors, Inc., a strategy and technology consultancy to the financial services industry.
  • “Understanding the Consumer: CU Marketing Best Practices,” a panel moderated by Dave Robinson, CEO of Newport Beach, Calif.-based public relations and advertising firm O’Leary and Partners. The panel features Brad Stothkamp, principal analyst, Forrester Research, and author of the May 2009 study, “”What Makes Credit Union Customers Different.”
  • “CO-OP Product Strategy: What You Need to Know Now,” presented by Kathy Herziger-Snider, vice president, product development, for CO-OP.
  • “The Best Members Use Shared Branching – 2010 Raddon Study Review,” presented by Craig Beach, senior vice president, marketing and business development, CO-OP Shared Branching. The Raddon Financial Group of Lombard, Ill. studied the profitability of shared branching over the course of two years. They found that credit unions using shared branching are more profitable than non-users and the convenience offered through shared branching is significant in terms of retaining members.
  • “Credit Union Revenue Sources – Interchange Update Panel,” moderated by Lynn Kneebone, regional sales director, and Caroline Lane, senior vice president, marketing and business development, CO-OP Financial Services.
  • “Social Media 101 – Real World Solutions to Help You Maximize the Medium, Connect and Grow,” presented by Uwe Hook, Geyrhalter Design, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based social media consultancy; and Tom Woerner, a marketing consultant and former publisher of BrandWeek magazine.

So, here are six more very good reasons for you to not only attend THINK 2010, but get there right at the beginning of things. Besides, we would hate for you to miss Sunday night’s Shared Branching Reception and Monday morning’s Children’s Miracle Network Charity Golf Tournament!

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Mar 15

Little Known Court Case, Potential Big Impact on CUs and Their Members

General / by Jim Hanisch Executive Vice President Network Operations & Corporate Development

Lost among CARD, CCFFA (Interchange), FAROCA (Overdraft), CFPA and all of the other regulatory and legislative alphabet soup that we all face is a little publicized court case that could impact us all. Several years ago the American Federation of the Blind assisted in a suit seeking that U.S. currency have features added that make denominations distinguishable by those individuals that are visually impaired. The court found in the Federation’s favor and instructed Treasury that as each note is redesigned a feature be added. The $1 note is exempted from this ruling. As a matter of public policy, this makes sense. Virtually every other country in the world has provided some means for the visually impaired to distinguish the denominations of their currency. Recently Treasury announced that it will not appeal the ruling.

The $100 note was already in redesign and will not be impacted in the current cycle. Treasury intends to seek comment later this year on design features and will incorporate the features into the next note redesigned. The two most commonly discussed features are changing the size of the notes or adding a brail feature to the note.

• Changing the size of the note by denomination would be fairly dramatic. It would impact ATM’s and their associated canisters/dispensers as well as virtually every cash register, cash drawer and other piece of cash handling equipment in the U.S. The ATM manufacturers should be well positioned since they dispense notes of varying sizes in many other countries using much of the same equipment in use in the U.S. There would likely be a need for upgrades and adjustments on ATM’s. Retailers and teller/vault operations would face more significant and expensive challenges.

• Adding a brail feature should be less disruptive. The challenge will be creating a feature that does not impact automated counters and dispensers yet is durable over the life of the note. Undoubtedly some adjustment or upgrade of existing teller, vault and ATM equipment may be needed. Given the sheer volume of such equipment, even testing will be an expensive proposition.

CO-OP Financial Services is monitoring this initiative closely, will comment to Treasury in coordination with you and other credit union advocates, and above all will keep you informed of requirements as they evolve. Our goal will be to support the public policy position but encourage implementation that lessens impact and costs to credit unions. Depending on the feature added, CO-OP intends to work with the ATM vendors to coordinate and aggregate for purposes of a credit union system implementation. On this issue, as with other payments related topics, CO-OP intends to provide leadership in guarding the interests of our member credit unions.

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