NEW YORK -
Struggling and working actors give it their all on Broadway and off, while staying alive financially working in restaurants and elsewhere all over this city of 8-9 million people.
Actors FCU Director of Marketing Steven Sobotta said his members live, work and use ATMs in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island. Many actors and union workers who work behind the scenes in musicals or plays “work crazy hours,” Sobotta said. We need depositories all over New York City. We have actors in all five boroughs.”
For that reason Actors FCU has teamed with the Rite Check check cashing company to use the PayNet Deposit Network, which will allow AFCU members to deposit cash or checks at locations throughout New York City. Rite Check CEO Joe Coleman said it works for all parties: check stores get a transaction fee, credit unions get a “new branch” and members gain access to hundreds of locations to deposit their pay. Coleman called the PayNet network “instant infrastructure” that quickly helps credit unions and their members.
“Normally, credit unions are infrastructure poor and check-cashers are infrastructure rich,” Coleman said.
Rite Check started the program with long-time Bethex Credit Union leader Joy Cousimer in 2001. AFCU’s Sobotta told the Credit Union Journal that he loves the new program. “It’s fantastic! An easy analogy is, PayNet has given us 160 deposit locations throughout the city, with virtually no overhead,” he said. “It’s one of those few programs that there is no downside.”
On its website Actors Federal describes the service to members this way: “Think of it as a teller-assisted ATM,” members can use PayNet to deposit cash, checks into either savings or checking, all with no fee. Checks deposited have a normal three-day hold, but members can cash a check and then deposit at least 20% for a fee to get immediate access to their funds. Coleman said the program offers another way for credit unions to compete with banks, which own more branches, but don’t serve the underserved very well, if at all.
“Banks don’t like the high-volume, low-cash accounts,” he said.
Sobotta said Actors Federal members are being tracked as they use the new service all over New York. Melrose Credit Union in Queens uses PayNet for a similarly diverse membership: taxi cab drivers. Melrose CU CEO Robert Nemeroff said his members drive all over New York and have a lot of cash on them, which raises the obvious safety issues. Nemeroff said through Melrose’s involvement with the New York league, he learned of the PayNet program and thought it could help the thousands of drivers he serves.
“Most of the public saw them as a cash business,” he acknowledged. “Thieves saw it as a mobile ATM.”
Nemeroff said taxi robberies are frightening, often violent crimes. It’s against city regulations to drive by someone hailing a cab if the cab has no passenger, so cabbies can be caught unaware very quickly. Adding 150 deposit locations for his credit union allows his members to deposit whenever they want and the cash goes directly into their account. Taxi drivers are owner/operators who work whenever they want or need to, he said. PayNet allows them to deposit cash, increasing their security, get back on the road or call it a “night.”
“That 2 p.m. (call) is that guy’s night and that’s when he’s going home,” he said.
Nemeroff said a credit union starting with PayNet needs only to create marketing materials. The $850-million Melrose CU has 19,000 members.
