HURON, S.D.-A focus on watching expenses and the resulting ability to offer above-market deposit rates has been the key to Huron Area Education FCU's success as a leader among its peer group.
The $13.1-million HAEFCU acknowledges it has also benefited from a rural South Dakota market that to date has not felt the kind of economic pain being felt in other parts of the country.
No Stranger To Be Rated Highly
Those factors have helped Huron Area Education FCU to finish atop Callahan & Associates Return to Savers rankings for the third quarter of 2008.
The credit union is no stranger to high placement in the rankings for credit unions with between $10 to 20 million in assets, CEO Darel Paterson said, as Huron Area Education has been atop the list several times over the last few years.
"We try to be fair to our members, we keep our expenses to a minimum so we can give the dividends back to our members," he added.
In a town of about 12,000 people, Huron Area Education FCU has to deal with four other credit unions as well as numerous banks, including a Wells Fargo branch. Nevertheless, the tiny credit union has found a way to maintain more than 1,100 educators and their relatives as members by keeping costs low and offering strong deposit products such as a three- year CD at 3.55%, a three-year IRA certificate at 3.6% and regular savings accounts with a 1.75% dividend rate.
"We only have one full-time person and four part-timers, and I'm not the full time person," Paterson noted. "Our rates are usually higher, and are dividends are competitive. We're usually the highest in town. We always look around and try to be very competitive-we'll usually match what somebody else will do. (And) we offer everything that the big institutions do; we have debit cards, student loans and home mortgages."
Growing Into A New Facility
As a sign of its success, the 56-year old institution plans to move out of its mall storefront location to a new, independent facility next year. Paterson freely concedes that the credit union is also succeeding because of its field of membership; while nearly every sector of the economy is shedding jobs, education is one of the very few to add workers. While the rest of the nation deals with huge real estate inventories, the Huron area is actually facing a housing shortage as a new turkey processing plant recently added 500 jobs to the region, sparking a population boost and a building mini-boom.
"We have not yet felt the economic crunch here. It will probably come, but we haven't felt it yet because we're a little removed from it," Paterson said. "It doesn't affect our field of membership as much because we need the school employees."
