Here is my latest video featuring a quick story about an experience I had at a branch of a national bank.
Showing posts with label credit unions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label credit unions. Show all posts
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Groupon Meets Credit Unions
I found this interesting website the other night. It is a "Groupon like" deal website. The is what it looks like:
According to the website's about us page:
CUponDeals.org brings members of credit unions a new deal every week. We negotiate awesome deals with business owners, often below cost, and let credit union members know about it through their credit unions, who share these special deals with their members through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, websites, email marketing, branch lobbies and this website.
It sounds very interesting. I would think this would make a unique feature on many credit union's websites. I have wondered whether a Groupon-style deal a week would work for credit unions. This website is mainy non-financial products. What if your credit union had its own group deal every week? Maybe cross a woot.com and groupon.com? You could do a deal with new auto loans. Your members could pay $10 for a coupon that if they got an auto loan from your credit union, the credit union makes their first payment for them. Subject to credit approval. I think that would be unique.
According to the website's about us page:
CUponDeals.org brings members of credit unions a new deal every week. We negotiate awesome deals with business owners, often below cost, and let credit union members know about it through their credit unions, who share these special deals with their members through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, websites, email marketing, branch lobbies and this website.
It sounds very interesting. I would think this would make a unique feature on many credit union's websites. I have wondered whether a Groupon-style deal a week would work for credit unions. This website is mainy non-financial products. What if your credit union had its own group deal every week? Maybe cross a woot.com and groupon.com? You could do a deal with new auto loans. Your members could pay $10 for a coupon that if they got an auto loan from your credit union, the credit union makes their first payment for them. Subject to credit approval. I think that would be unique.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
2011 Next Top Credit Union Exec
Yes, the rumors are true! I have thrown my hat in the competition to be the Next Top Credit Union Executive! Check out my video:
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The End of Small Credit Unions
Increasingly, smaller credit unions are finding it harder to compete for their member's business because of new governmental regulations, increasing competition, and lack of an adaptive business model.
The federal government passed major banking regulatory overhaul recently which will put additional burdens on financial institutions. If you are a credit union with only four or five employees total, this will represent a significant increase in costs. Some people even believe that this is the federal government's plan all along. Drive the smaller financial institutions into insolvency so they are forced to sell out to bigger institutions. If you haven't noticed, when the FDIC shuts down a bank, it is "sold" to a bigger bank. Soon we will only be left with mega banks which will be easier to control by the federal government.
Most of your small credit unions are one branch financial institution that services one company's employees. Also, some credit unions that have defined employer based membership are finding it more and more difficult to compete with those credit unions with community based charters. This is only natural because for the smaller credit unions your potential membership base is much smaller that as community chartered credit union.
When speaking of business model, financial institutions have traditionally relied upon taking deposits and making loans to supply their interest income. As the deposit and lending rates become more competitive, the amount of income you make from this decreases. The only way you can make up for this is the either make more loans or diversify your income stream. The smaller credit unions are unable to expand lending due to limited membership size, but they have yet to embrace other avenues of generating income. Some people find it strange when I speak about profits when it comes to credit unions because of their not-for-profit status, but every organization to remain solvent needs to generate profits or else they will soon go under.
My advice to credit unions are too either adapt to the new business climate or merge with a compatible credit union to increase your membership base. Either way, they should keep in mind that they should always do what is best for their members since they are the ones who own the credit union.
The federal government passed major banking regulatory overhaul recently which will put additional burdens on financial institutions. If you are a credit union with only four or five employees total, this will represent a significant increase in costs. Some people even believe that this is the federal government's plan all along. Drive the smaller financial institutions into insolvency so they are forced to sell out to bigger institutions. If you haven't noticed, when the FDIC shuts down a bank, it is "sold" to a bigger bank. Soon we will only be left with mega banks which will be easier to control by the federal government.
Most of your small credit unions are one branch financial institution that services one company's employees. Also, some credit unions that have defined employer based membership are finding it more and more difficult to compete with those credit unions with community based charters. This is only natural because for the smaller credit unions your potential membership base is much smaller that as community chartered credit union.
When speaking of business model, financial institutions have traditionally relied upon taking deposits and making loans to supply their interest income. As the deposit and lending rates become more competitive, the amount of income you make from this decreases. The only way you can make up for this is the either make more loans or diversify your income stream. The smaller credit unions are unable to expand lending due to limited membership size, but they have yet to embrace other avenues of generating income. Some people find it strange when I speak about profits when it comes to credit unions because of their not-for-profit status, but every organization to remain solvent needs to generate profits or else they will soon go under.
My advice to credit unions are too either adapt to the new business climate or merge with a compatible credit union to increase your membership base. Either way, they should keep in mind that they should always do what is best for their members since they are the ones who own the credit union.
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