SAN DIEGO — Is the recession over? The Conference Board has stated it is. Fed Chief Ben Bernanke has said publicly the recession is technically over, and the stock markets and Wall Street are seeing signs of life. But what about Main Street?
At Harland Financial's Connections Conference here, Credit Union Journal asked attendees what they are hearing from their members and for their own views about whether a recovery has arrived.
"Our membership is state government workers, so they weren't hit that hard. But, our repos are up, so some of our members are having trouble making their payments. Kentucky is up to 11% unemployment, so it is affecting us. There is no turnaround quite yet.
"One good thing is, we used to be cautioned by our regulators that we had 'too much' capital, but we aren't hearing that now. We have sufficient capital, so the corporate credit union bailout didn't hurt us."
Anne Burgess, CIO, Commonwealth Credit Union, Frankfort, Ky.
"In Oklahoma we kinda thought [the recession] wasn't going to happen to us because it took so long to trickle down. So when it did happen, people panicked. When we started getting foreclosures, even thought it was nothing compared to the coasts, it was a problem. We are growing like gangbusters because people see us as safe. We have had $100-million in asset growth in the last 12 months."
Cassie Mangold, Director of Consumer Lending, TTCU, Tulsa, Okla.
"What I've heard is one of the indicators the recession is over is unemployment is at its peak. That means we are still dealing with members who are unemployed or underemployed, and they have difficulty making their payments. We have about 10% job losses in our area, but that includes people re-entering the market, so it sometimes difficult to quantify. We did not have a spike in real estate, so it has not gone down a lot, either.
"We've developed a 'Recovery Center' where we try to counsel members before they get into trouble. We want to keep them in their house, so we are restructuring loans."
Belinda Caillouet, VP Information Technology, STCU, Liberty Lake, Wash.
"We are in southwest Washington, which has the highest unemployment rate in the state. Even though we have branches throughout Washington and one in Oregon, we still are a "small town credit union." In our county, membership would say they've been hit hard.
"We are starting to see some recovery — at least real estate seems to have bottomed out. But we won't see any notable upturn until mid-2010 at the earliest."
Jeff Haverlack, VP Information Technology, Red Canoe Credit Union, Longview, Wash.
"The unemployment rate indicators are still pretty high, and that is what affects our members. We expect delinquencies and charge offs will continue into 2010. We expect to see the recovery next year."
Alex Casillas, President, My CU, Redwood City, Calif.
