PROVO, Utah - When it comes to gaining greater share of wallet, it may be hard to find a CU more aggressive than Mountain High FCU. The $59-million credit union, which has averaged better than 2% ROA for the last three years, bundles products with a free checking account that’s given to members when they join, and then focuses on encouraging members to use the services.
At sign-up, members get free “Premiere Checking,” which comes with a Visa credit card and a debit card, overdraft protection with a line of credit, and direct deposit. If the member has kids, children are immediately eligible for a certificate paying a10% APY that can be opened for $50–but deposits can’t be touched until the child reaches 18.
Members have the option to turn down Premiere Checking, which pays .25% APY, in favor of a standard checking account that carries a $10 monthly fee. But CEO Dennis Dunn said, “Nobody wants that. They always take the free account and we know that. We just bundle everything up and they get the whole shooting match.”
Results support the strategy, as Dunn noted Mountain High is ranked seventh in the nation among all CUs by Callahan & Associates in “return-of-member ratio.” Dunn explained that ratio is derived from key factors such as account usage and the number of members with loans and other services.
“We started Premiere Checking three years ago because we are an aggressive credit union,” Dunn said. “There’s nothing new about this. I’ve been in the business for 32 years and the banks taught me that the more services you have with your members the less likely they are to go anywhere else.”
Dunn admitted the credit union gets pushback at times from members who don’t want all of the services. “But we tell them, ‘Yes, we know you may not want all of them. Just use what you need.’ But that credit card is coming, and once they get it in their hand we educate them about the use of it. And we double their debit card rewards. We get a lot of members using the services they said they didn’t want.”
Cut Out The Competitors
Mountain High also actively tries to cut out competitors as soon as members join, mentioning all the credit card solicitations that bombard consumers and then providing information on how to register with national opt-out services. “So we nix our competitors on the spot,” Dunn said.
It takes Mountain High FCU more time than the average credit union to sign up new members, Dunn said. But its “tag team” approach helps streamline the process.
“One of our mottos is that if you are not serving a member you should be serving someone who is,” Dunn explained. “So if I’m opening an account with a new member, another employee runs the credit report and handles much of the details to make this a little faster and less painless for the member. It also allows me to concentrate on building that relationship and selling the member services.”
Mountain High’s lending program has benefited from Premiere, Dunn added.
“Members get a line of credit when they join, so we tell them from day one that if you need another loan, you’ve already signed the papers. Just call us and tell us what you want and we’ll do it for you.”
With 91.35% of its 8,000 members having loans with the CU, Mountain High is in the “98th percentile of all credit unions, according to NCUA data,” Dunn said. “Only 2% of credit unions in America have better borrower-to-member ratios. And according to Callahan’s CU Analyzer, we were the number-one credit union in the nation last year in lending. And our delinquencies last quarter were .14%.”
If anyone looks at Mountain High’s assets–which have grown by an average of $12 million a year over the last three years–and calls the CU small, Dunn says he and his staff take exception. “We are a thriving, dynamic, aggressive credit union and we don’t think, act, or play small. We have most of the services of the big boys and we think we are better at promoting them.”
