By Frank J. Diekmann
We’re now playing with more than a full deck. At least in one way.
Two weeks ago in this space I announced the CUToday for a Better Tomorrow initiative. It’s a simple challenge with a potentially profound potential: we’re asking credit unions during October, November and December of this year to simply help one extra member per month by perhaps refinancing a loan, moving an unbanked person into a relationship, or just sitting down with someone to help straighten out their finances.
Our goal 14 days ago had been to get a dozen CUs to sign up and participate in this the inaugural year of CUToday for a Better Tomorrow—we already have 55 credit unions on board!
The effort is being launched to mark CUToday.info’s one-year anniversary in October. All credit unions are being invited to participate.
CUToday.info has made it extremely easy to be a part of this exciting, people-helping-people effort by banning the CFPB from any role: all you have to do is respond to a monthly e-mail with a single paragraph on the member who was helped, and how. CUToday.info will then compile into one document all of the examples of how credit unions are making members’ lives better. The document will be available for free to everyone. It’s that simple.
Credit unions that are interested in helping one extra member per month as part of this initiative can contact me at Frank@CUToday.info. Those CUs will receive an introductory letter, and then one e-mail in October, November and December as a very simple reminder to provide their one paragraph story of how they have helped to create a better tomorrow for that member.
I look forward to hearing from you.
And In Other News...
We all know about the credit union lust for Millennials. But maybe CUs are going about it all wrong when it comes to mobile banking apps for a certain cohort of this demographic: Maybe CUs should roll out a banking app titled “Might I Get Lucky?”
As CUToday.info recently reported, a new study conducted by Chase indicates that more consumers are using their mobile app (33%) or banking online (35%) than last year, while only 16% are stopping by branches more often. Among the data nuggets unearthed in the study is that many romantic evenings out are, for at least one half of any couple, apparently angst-filled over “How am I going to pay for this?,” with nearly one-in-five saying they had checked their mobile banking app during a date.
* Speaking of data nuggets, here’s one that is anything but nugget sized. State Employees’ CU in North Carolina, the second largest credit union in the world, recently reported that it had delivered $772-million in value to its members during 2014. Buried in among all the findings supporting that value and how it was determined was this: One out of every five North Carolina citizens is a member of SECU. There is market penetration, and then there’s that statistic.
* There is no shortage of urban legends around the so-called coincidences and parallels of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. You can read more here, where many of those myths are debunked. But here’s one more for you: The chairman of Land of Lincoln Credit Union is Mark Kennedy.
* Labor Day earlier this week generally marks the official end of Summer. But if you didn’t see this piece on why one teenager called being a credit union teller the ideal job, you’ll want to read this.
* With the presidential election still more than a year away, it means we’ll be listening to every candidate for that office, not to mention every other office, running on a platform of going to Washington to attack the “special interests.” Setting aside for a moment that everyone represents multiple special interests, it’s hard sometimes to realize just how many special interest groups there are in Washington. One example: CUNA and NAFCU were recently among the signees of a letter thanking two senators for legislation that would provide a safe harbor from CFPB’s TRID rules through year end. In just this one narrow category, that letter was also signed by the ABA, American Escrow Association, American Land Title Association, Appraisal Institute, The Appraisal Firm Coalition, Collateral Risk Network Community Home Lenders Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Consumer Mortgage Coalition, Community Mortgage Lenders of America, Independent Community Bankers of America, Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Home Builders, National Association of Mortgage Brokers, National Association of Realtors, Real Estate Services Providers Council, Inc., and the Real Estate Valuation Advocacy Association.
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief with CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info.