SEATTLE — A 75-year-old credit union here re-opened its doors with a new mission: to serve the unbanked of King County.
Express Credit Union spent the better part of two years working to secure partners and funding to make big upgrades to its operations, changes that essentially saved the venerable institution.
With less than $10 million in assets and stagnant growth, former CEO Norma Hernandez knew the credit union needed to make a big change or be absorbed by a larger cooperative, and she found it in a way she was not expecting.
"I was looking for a way to expand to serve more of the Latino community, and as I was out there making contacts I became aware that there was a much larger community that were unserved...by traditional banking institutions," she said, but noted that Express simply could not accomplish that goal or even continue to serve its existing members without major upgrades. "I knew being a small credit union we couldn't continue functioning that way, and we needed to figure out something else to survive."
As Credit Union Journal reported previously (CU Journal,
The new Express CU will offer a number of new unique products, and tailored some of its existing products, for its new field of membership. Members will be able to open up share accounts for just $5, down from $50 under the previous iteration, and will have access to payday alternatives and debt consolidation loans, both which have savings components. In fact, new members could walk in looking for a payday advance or a loan to get out from under payday loans from "fringe" institutions and leave with a large portion of the fee or interest rate deposited in a new savings account.
With just one brick-and-mortar location, Express CU will depend heavily on its three community outreach officers to bring in new business. Armed with laptops that directly connect to the credit union's core system, these officers will be able to open accounts, take loan applications and conduct other transactions from their rotating posts at 16 different social service agencies. Because the financially underserved are comfortable with the existing relationships they have with those agencies, cooperation between the CU and community groups is critical.
"Our new members are going to be more likely to listen to them and trust them as opposed to just coming in on our own," said Kurz. "Our biggest short-term goal is to create awareness in the community that were an alternative."
That awareness should lead to big jumps in membership, or at least Express is banking on that to happen. Kurz is aiming for 1,250 new members in a year and similar growth in the following year; essentially doubling the membership rolls in just 12 months. But it's doable, as each of those community representatives would need to add only two or three new members per day to reach that goal - just half of what it experienced at its YWCA location during the pilot. "In just one day a week at that location, and with very limited advertising we brought on 80 new members from mid-February to mid-May," Kurz pointed out.
