A Survival Guide

[Editor's Note: This article was previously published in CUInsight, and has been modified.]

Credit unions face an aging membership base. At the recently held immersion18, Trellance’s annual conference, a survival guide was presented for credit unions to prepare for and counter this trend.

The average age of a credit union member is 47. This means that most members are past their prime borrowing years. Income from interest is the biggest line item on almost every credit union’s income statement, therefore if members are moving from borrowing age to saving age, the average Return on Member (ROM) will start to decline. That’s not to say that savers aren’t valuable members, a credit union needs both.

Credit Unions Can Offer Members Affluent Cards and Increase Their Bottom Line

Wealthy Americans love credit card rewards. These cardholders can also be the most profitable for a credit union issuer – but only with the right card product.

The battle to acquire cardholders is being won by issuers who use rewards as ammunition. Both Visa and Mastercard report card growth in the low double digits, with the lion’s share of that coming from reward cards. It’s no secret that Americans love their reward cards. According to Brian Riley of The Payments Journal, more households have credit card rewards than have 401k plans. And the rewards continue to grow. In 2008, the average credit card bonus offer was 16,050 points. Today, the average offer is 40,556 points.

[Editor's Note: This article was previously published in CUInsight, and has been modified.]

Credit unions think of branding in terms of advertising, mailings, inserts, logos and social media. However, payments, and all the touch points associated with digital and plastic payments, are an equally important part of a credit union’s brand.

Credit Union marketers are diligent in ensuring that the brand is consistent throughout all aspects of member contact. So, signage, logos, websites, mobile and online banking platforms are all inspected for consistency with the brand. Payments should also be included in this thought process.

Immersion18, the first conference for the Trellance team under their new brand, incorporated the same insightful, educational and informative information as in the previous twenty-six years, but with a lot more collaboration and fun.

Tom Davis, President and CEO, kicked off this year’s annual conference stating “We have to be independent to be your best advocate.” Tom went on to explain that “While Trellance provides many of the same services it offered before, such as card processing; three words will drive its future: Independent, unbiased advocate.” Tom gave the four key factors toward credit union success: Hiring top talent, collaboration, having vision, and using data analytics. Bill Lehman, SVP of consulting services, spoke next, introducing some of the 17 new services offered by Trellance.

Act Small to Gain Trust

[Editor's Note: This article was previously published in Credit Union Times, and has been modified.]

There is no doubt that the credit union industry has been and still is going through quite a bit of change.  From mergers and acquisitions, to regulatory changes, to incorporating technology and attracting younger demographics. Overall, despite the shrinking number of credit unions; membership, loans and share numbers are up. According to Callahan’s Trendwatch Year-End 2017, The Annual Report for the Industry data, total credit union membership reached 112.9 million, up from 108.2 million at the end of 2016. While new auto loans (13.2%), used auto loans (10.3%), first mortgages (10.2%) and credit cards (9.2%) lead the way in annual growth among loans outstanding, and year-over-year growth in share drafts (10.0%), regular shares (7.1%) and share certificates (6.3%) outpace the rest of the portfolio. However, after being somewhat of the “anti-bank”, many argue that credit unions today are beginning to minimize the fact that they are credit unions and changing their profiles to look and feel more like retail banks in order to compete with their financial counterparts. Many have also been incorporating as many banking lingos in their messaging as they can. However, this may not be a good strategy.