SALT LAKE CITY — With the economy shedding jobs at an alarming pace, Mountain America CU proudly noted its business services department helped create more than 700 jobs in Utah last year.
The job creation figure comes from a formula used by the Utah Certified Development Company, which estimates one job is created by every $50,000 in capital. Mountain America said it is the No. 1 lender to small businesses among CUs nationwide.
Mike Turner, senior vice president of business services for the $2.8-billion credit union, told Credit Union Journal Mountain America does a number of things to promote business lending. MACU is active in local Chambers of Commerce, and it hosts a business services open house once a year in the spring.
"The open house is by invitation; we serve a light lunch and give members an opportunity to mingle while they learn about the types of services we offer," Turner explained. "It started as a defensive measure. We had lost a loan officer and we wanted to make sure members didn't follow the loan officer. It was popular from the get-go, it has grown each year, and now members call us and ask when the next open house will be."
The first open house saw 70 people attend, and last year 150 showed up. Turner said Mountain America CU's management sent out more invitations than usual this year, but he was not sure what type of return it will get given the state of the economy. Still, the hope is that the economy will actually help drive even more people to attend.
"It is a great opportunity for us to showcase our products and services, as well as introduce members to our department heads," Turner said.
MACU currently has approximately 2,500 SBA [Small Business Administration] loans. According to Turner, the credit union offers "essentially all types" of business checking and deposit products. On the lending side, it does SBA loans as well as larger commercial real estate loans.
Asked about the popularity of business services among its 319,000 members, Turner said, "I think it is one more thing we can offer our members. They see we offer them benefits."
MACU's business loan volume is "a little bit off" from 2008, "but not significantly off," he continued. "We are seeing the same dollars as a year ago, but there are more deals to get to that level. For example, in March we did $2 million in SBA loans, which is typical of this time of year."
MACU's members use these loans to fund a "broad spectrum" of businesses, Turner said, "from retail to wholesale, some manufacturing, a little bit of everything."
The decline in property values in Utah has forced Mountain America to closely examine the values of real estate used as collateral. "We need to have appraisers be on top of any changes because real estate values are more volatile than a year ago," Turner noted.
