ORLANDO-At the 2013 Grow Show, Credit Union Journal asked attendees, "What's driving growth at your CU?"
Jennifer Mendez, Regional Manager
Insight CU, Orlando.
We have been doing well with member growth (1.5% to 2%) due to a two-part program that focuses on community involvement programs and local businesses. Our "Insight Inspire" program has created a lot of support from staff, their family and friends. We contributed 3,800 hours of community service last year and 3,600 the year before. "Insight Everywhere" is all about local business development, getting closely involved with local companies and the chamber of commerce. We're getting our name out.
Nancy Harding, Member Center Manager
Tonawanda Valley FCU, Batavia, N.Y.
We are looking for new, out-of-the box ideas to help us grow. It's critical that we do this in light of the margin compression, threats to revenue streams, and tough auto loan competition. Dealers are killing us on new car rates-they beat us every time. We got a few great growth ideas at the Grow Show meeting a few years ago; we know we'll get a few more this year.
Michael Poulos, CEO
Michigan First CU, Lathrup Village, Mich.
We are focusing hard on expanding service levels and improving lending. It's all working and this year we're making more money than ever-ROA is 1.4% so far. We are benefitting from an improving economy in Michigan and the fact the luster of banks has worn off on consumers, as we all know. But a real key is to do the same good things we have always been doing, and more people are simply becoming aware of us.
John McGregor, Director of Branch Administration
Island FCU, Hauppauge, N.Y.
Lending, especially auto loans and home equity, is driving growth for us. We are very competitive for auto with 1.99% for A credit up to 60 months. But what we feel is helping us go toe-to-toe with the tough auto loan competition is that we offer the rate for new and used, plus we make it very easy to apply online, and we provide quicker decisions. Overall, lending is up 38% over last year.
Davis Johnston, SVP of Operations
121 FCU, Jacksonville, Fla.
One of the things we've done that's been working is to put in a 50/50 referral program. Basically it's members referring members. A lot of speakers (at Grow Show) have alluded to word of mouth being one of the best things, and about 30% of our new checking accounts this year have come from that. The member gets $50 and the new member gets $50 if they get checking and direct deposit, so that's one thing. We've made some loans out of it as well-about a 4% penetration of those accounts that we've obtained. It started in February of last year, so it's been going just over a year now.
Debbie Bullock, VP of Administration
Martin FCU, Orlando
We are seeing a positive turnaround-finally. We had a couple of years in the red, so we're looking for some good things to happen this year. We're looking for membership growth. We're one of the smaller credit unions here, and we're up against some pretty big bank competitors as well as credit union competitors. ... We're finding that word of mouth works really well. We do a lot of a grassroots approach-getting out into the community, chambers, networking and that sort of thing. The Hispanic market is big here. That helps us, because if we provide quality service to Hispanic members, they tell their family and friends about us. I think there is more word of mouth with the Hispanic markets. The Hispanic segment tends to be so much more loyal, and they really like to brag about the things they do that are good. I would've liked to have seen more members coming to us as a result of bad bank experiences, but we haven't seen much growth from that.
