ST. PAUL, Minn.-Affinity Plus FCU has used an internship for college students as a way to get a better understanding of what that generation wants from a financial institution.
Tasha Dahl, manager of financial accounting at the $1.6-billion, 167,000-member credit union, explained that APFCU's program originated about three years ago as a way to provide the interns with experience while also having them provide a vital service for the credit union.
"Our interns were brought on specifically to look at what the Millennial generation of consumers wants from their bank or credit union," said Dahl.
Three Different Projects
This year Affinity Plus hosted three interns, all of whom were required to make recommendations about products the CU can offer that might better appeal to young members or ways it can change existing products and services.
One intern spent the summer researching and interviewing Gen Y consumers about payments and, as a result, Affinity Plus is likely to institute the Popmoney P2P solution from Fiserv.
Another intern looked into the auto-buying experience, querying college students and recent grads and surveying members "to understand what young people know about cars and car loans and how that process works, and what misconceptions they have."
Affinity Plus has long offered a product designed for first-time home buyers, but never anything similar for auto buyers, and the intern recommended a program for first-timers.
Eco-Friendly Loans
"We currently don't have a product that incents people to get a car that's 'green' or eco-friendly," said Dahl. "We're looking at a special product or rates or other options for consumers that want to buy a car that's eco-friendly and meets certain criteria. It would be available to anyone, but (the intern) felt like that was really important to consumers of the Millennial generation."
Neither the first-time buyer product nor the "green" car incentives are yet available, and Affinity PLus will make decisions on whether or not to offer those products within the next few months.
"It's likely that we will do one or both of those," said Dahl.
Lastly, one intern participated in the Millennial Trains Project, riding the rails across the country from San Francisco to Washington-and stopping along the way to discuss financial literacy among Millennials. As a result of that intern's research, Affinity Plus is likely to alter its financial education offerings (see related story).
"He found that students don't know much about credit scores," explained Dahl. "We're aware that a lot of young people don't know what it means, but he found that some students don't know how really anything contributes negatively or positively to their credit. It was way more prevalent than we thought. The other thing that was huge was that we know people often want help with budgeting, but we didn't know the extent to which students didn't know how to create a budget or even start to put one together."
With that in mind, Affinity Plus plans to shift its financial education seminars away from a high-level focus to more practical matters.
'Understanding What We're About'
Dahl said that while there is no hard evidence to tie the internships to an increase in Gen Y membership, she noted there is anecdotal evidence that the CU's Millennial numbers are up. That comes not just from college advisors talking about the internship program (and increasing numbers of applications each year) but from the CU also having a greater presence on college campuses throughout Minnesota.
For other CUs interested in instituting this sort of program, Dahl stressed the importance of making sure that interns are matched with mentors inside the credit union so that they understand the CU's internal culture, its value proposition and its overall vision.
"We don't have them really do any (research) until they fully understand and can demonstrate that they understand what we're all about here."
