By Ray Birch
AUSTIN, Minn.—One small credit union that ranks highly nationally for its ability to return value to members is reminding that while digital delivery is critical, an organization cannot lose its “human touch.”
“When you reflect on it, it's surprising for us to be ranked so highly (in Callahan & Associates’ Return Of The Member index), but also not surprising because we've got an outstanding personal touch with our members,” said Stephanie Riles, CEO of Mower County Employees CU. “I know it may sound trite, but they truly are our family.”
That personal touch resulted in the $12-million Mower County ECU being ranked in the top 10 in the 2023 Callahan index for cooperatives in the $10-$20 million in assets peer group.
The Calculation
According to Callahan & Associates, its return Of The Member index offers a comprehensive view of the value a credit union returns to its members. The company said the calculation weighs three core credit union functions — savings, lending, and product usage — by taking into consideration aspects such as loan and deposit rates, the number of products and services offered, and member participation.
Riles said her team is trained to know all they can about each of the CU’s 774 members.
“And it’s much more than just the data points,” she explained. “We know their family, their histories, much more so than a larger institution.”
The small CU isn’t lacking for bank competition in its market—home to the Spam Museum--which is 100 miles south of Minneapolis and just north of the border with Iowa. But Riles believes that just makes the credit union’s approach stand out even further. She said the credit union has not seen funds flow out to those larger institutions.
Mower County Employees CU
‘Great Rapport’
“We see it every day here where a member calls for a loan, and I may take the call myself—and I have been doing that for a long while,” said Riles. “My staff has also been here for years and they work with members well. We let them know putting the loan together will be easy and simple. We often already know what their credit rating is and we just have great rapport.”
Riles acknowledged her small shop has bucked some of the trend toward becoming a primarily digital provider, although Mower County Employees CU does offer digital and online access.
But she also believes its high level of personal service has helped the credit union to remain strong and has kept members loyal, held delinquencies down and allowed the organization to reward account holders with top-of-market rates both in loans and deposits.
The credit union’s capital stands at 13.2% and ROAA has averaged more than 1% over the last three years.
The Big Decision
Riles said she and her team recognized 10 years ago that small credit unions faced a big decision–to continue to go it alone on their own or to merge. It was a debate she said the organization wrestled with for some time before deciding to keep moving forward as Mower County.
“There was a time when membership and performance was plateauing—we noticed that we were not getting many new, younger generation members,” recalled Riles. “But we decided to take the risk and continue to move forward. We said let’s work hard in the next 10 years to capture more younger members and to become the primary financial institution for most of our members.”
The Centerpiece
That led to the introduction of strong online and mobile banking platforms, more products and better rates. But personal service remained the centerpiece, Riles explained.
“That is what we did and over the course of the next 10 years we accomplished what we set out to do. We have had many younger members join the credit union and our account per member ratio has increased, which lets us know we are becoming that PFI for our account holders,” Riles said. “It turned out to be a good risk.”