PayThink

As we gather for NAFCU's 2008 Congressional Caucus, many of the issues facing credit unions have not changed dramatically since last year-but the market dynamics certainly have.

Credit unions are unique financial entities, which exist to serve the core principles of membership involvement and control. In a post-Bear Stearns world, financial regulations and governance practices of CUs surely come under intense scrutiny as they will for all financial institutions.

The scene: the University of Credit Union's football team's locker room prior to the 2008 season opener. The locker room is nearly 100 years old, and although it's had extensive renovations over the years, if you look hard enough you can see vestiges of its history. The team huddles up around Head Coach Alfonse Co-op, who has his leg up on a bench, and he leans over with his arms on his leg is a pose he had once seen in a photo by legendary Coach Ed "Working Man" Filene.

You know you need to leverage the electronic banking channel to grow your credit union. But what you may not know is just how to do it and what the successful providers of e-banking know.

Once a credit union has been able to acquire a member, it must do whatever it takes to keep them as a repetitive user of its services, and ensure "PFI" (primary financial institution) status.

As the economy continues to show signs of weakness, credit unions increasingly face the prospect, if not the actual event, of a credit union member filing for protection from creditors under the Bankruptcy Code. When this happens, a credit union may be faced with several interrelated issues and questions:

Growth is fueled by the member experience. Research shows 10 tools can enhance that experience to build the highest loyalty and gain new members by referral.

Your disaster plan has no doubt gotten much more detailed and sophisticated in a post 9/11 and Katrina World. Those run-of-the-mill disasters, fires and floods and tornadoes? You're ready. The slightly more exotic but increasingly common internal threats? You've put new procedures in place and updated your insurance. And those supposedly once-a-century disasters and terrorist attacks? You aren't waiting 100 years to get your act together.

With financial service trends driving towards mobility and efficiency, we need to invest in and examine how we can extend our products and services through new e-channels and challenge ourselves on product differentiation.

In the June 30 edition of Credit Union Journal, Peter Duffy wrote an article titled, "Evolving Credit Unions Demand What Congress Intended: Option to Change Charters." This article could have been written by any of the leaders of the thrift charter conversion movement that has now almost come to a screeching halt because of the perils inherent in the process and the realization that the grass isn't necessarily as green as it might seem on the bank/thrift side of the fence.