MISSOULA, Mont.-If a big box retailer can open early near the Thanksgiving holiday to draw a crowd, why not a credit union?
In the spirit of "Black Friday," Montana 1st Credit Union decided to open the doors of one of its branches at 7 a.m. the day before Turkey Day for a time-sensitive loan promotion. Tyler Disburg, assistant vice president for the $62-million credit union, said in four hours it sold as many loans as it normally does in six weeks.
"We booked at least 125 loans for $1.8 million," he told Credit Union Journal. "We expect by the time all the remaining loans are loaded we should exceed $2 million. It was so much further than anything we could have anticipated and management is so proud."
The marketing image for this "Black Wednesday" loan promo featured a turkey being chased by a clock. Rates started at 1.5% on secured loans and 3.5% on unsecured for the earliest arrivals. Disburg said the rate was supposed to go up a quarter-point every 30 minutes, "but in the heat of battle we extended that to every hour, which brought us more goodwill."
As 7 a.m. on Black Wednesday drew closer, a large crowd had long since formed a line, he reported, including many who had camped out all night in the cold.
"They were out there with propane heaters. It was a sight to see," he said.
Montana 1st normally does 100 loans per month, so Disburg had prepared 75 numbers to hand to the members who already were in line prior to 7 a.m. But when he went out to distribute the slips of paper, he quickly handed out all 75 numbers and had to go create more.
There were 103 total waiting before 7 a.m., with the majority being new members.
Consolidation Loans Popular
The Black Wednesday promo drew a large number of consolidation loans, as well as loans for automobiles, all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles. Disburg said he did not yet have an exact breakdown on unsecured versus secured, but the average yield was at least 2.72%.
"That is a lot better than we could do investing right now," he pointed out. "For two years we have had trouble moving the ball with lending, but earlier this year we had a successful auto lending promotion and now this, so we are moving well."
Because the promotion took place on a work day, Disburg said the staff moved quickly to expedite the taking of applications-which was completed by 11:30 a.m. Management was "shocked" that the credit quality was "extremely high." He estimated 90% or more were A paper.
"It was much higher than we anticipated. To date we have not turned anyone down."
The ongoing task of processing the many new loans has been "stressful," Disburg reported, but he said the staff has been doing "an admirable job."
"We made it a goal to push all of these out as fast as possible. We will see next month, but the initial numbers are encouraging. We were concerned adding a large number of new members might hurt our products per household if all they did was take out an auto loan, but the relationships we are getting are high quality so we may increase our products per household.
"It was an all around home run," he added. "I could not have scripted it better. I am very proud of the effort on everybody's part."
