MONTROSE, Colo. — Being a member of Nuvista FCU is such a good deal, a number of big bank employees have joined the CU-and have even recommended CU membership to some of their bank customers.
"They know they are going to be able to get a better rate and probably better service," said Nuvista CEO Dan Sheetinger, declining to name the big bank in his area whose employees have become Nuvista members. Sheetinger said only that it was a big, national bank with a branch in his area.
Nuvista FCU has been able to stay in the top 10 of Callahan's Return of the Member rankings over the last few years and captured the No. 3 spot in the fourth quarter of 2008.
With just 16,000 residents in the city, members like the small-town connection they feel with the $71-million credit union, Sheetinger pointed out. "They like the fact that our fees are not as exorbitant as some of the banks in town and they definitely like the service they get," he added. "When you get down to it there is no difference between us and other financial institutions. Most of us offer the same basic products. What is going to make us better than them is the service that we give [members] when they walk through the doors. If we're not going out of our way to take care of them, there's no reason for them not to go across the street to the banks."
In a rough economy, Nuvista members have been pulling money from their investments and banks and plugging it into short-term certificates at the credit union as six and 12-month term CDs have exploded in popularity. According to Sheetinger, members are still shying away from longer-term certificates, though, as future interest rates could fluctuate dramatically and many folks don't want to get locked in at today's terms.
On the lending side, Nuvista is finally seeing an uptick in first mortgage loans in the last couple of months after a slowdown, but the credit union's historically biggest product is still lagging behind refinances. In fact, refinancing activity has been so brisk that Sheetinger is now putting the loans on the credit union's books instead of shifting them to the market. Over the last 40 years, Nuvista has stuck strictly to five- and seven-year balloon notes for first mortgages and all longer term mortgages were underwritten by CU Member Mortgage. "With them being on balloons it helps us to control our interest rate risk so we're not sitting there at 15-, 20- or 30-year loans with low interest and then we hit a high interest market," said Sheetinger.
Though it will only make up about $1 million of its portfolio this year, the CU plans to cherry pick a few longer-term fixed loans and keep them on the books. No matter what products members have with the credit union, the dividends still roll in frequently. Instead of the usual annual payments, Nuvista pays monthly dividends so members can "reap returns all of the time," Sheetinger explained, noting that the credit union has kept expenses down to 40% of income giving more opportunity to return money back to the membership.
