Each month I receive 3 to 5 CEO staff briefings. While many share similar financial performance versus plan updates and emplyee recognitions, I find their specific topics enlightening. These often convey the special role of credit unions. Here are edited selections from recent, multiple CEO communications.
Joining Veterans Benefits Banking
We became affiliated with the Veterans Benefits Banking Program (VBBP). The VBBP is a partnership between the Veterans Administration (VA) and banks and credit unions which understand the financial needs of the Veteran community and who deliver excellent customer service.
Based on all our credit union does for and with the local VA Medical Center, it was clear that the we more than qualifies for the designation. VBBP connects VA benefit recipients with financial institutions who offer low or no cost accounts, provide financial education, and assist VA benefit recipients with various financial matters
AI Powered Text & Chat
We introduced an AI associate within our Podium text and chat platform on April 3 that answers general questions of members. The platform’s conversational AI employee, named Jerry, interacted with 240 members in its first week.
Contact center associates are monitoring the interactions, have encountered no AI hallucinations and report that Jerry is appropriately responsive to a member’s tone and is learning at a rapid pace.
Regulatory Exam Update
Examiners from both the state’s Division of Financial Institutions and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) were both on-site and remote the past four weeks to perform a safety and soundness exam. As a state-chartered credit union, DFI is our prudential regulator while NCUA is our deposit insurer. Both agencies work closely together in order to share work product and reduce examination costs.
We expect to receive only one examination report jointly written by both agencies, likely to be in the next month or two. We also expect to be given our usual clean bill of health with only some minor findings in the exam report. Thank you everyone who dealt with the various questions of the examiners.
(my reaction: a month or two?)
Member Comments
Monica helped me get a new account set up, information I needed to be able to transfer money from my old bank account, and direct deposit information together for my employer. She was great to work with. I’m really excited to be changing to this credit union from my bank! Thank you for a great first experience!
I appreciate the small grace period as this economy is extremely difficult to just get by in. I got a great interest rate and if it weren’t for y’all, I would not have been able to graduate from NP school.
On Balance Sheet Growth
We had a pretty solid first quarter of the year. Our net income was slightly better than last month. We have had really strong deposit growth-growing 13% on an annualized basis. We have had loan growth but certainly not at that pace!
DELINQUENCY AND CHARGE-OFFS
After presenting delinquency trends in each loan segment, the CEO continued:
Considering all the economic uncertainty we remain diligent and concerned about our members’ ability to make loan payments and are offering individual solutions when appropriate. Our delinquency and chargep-offs are the reason that we have tightened our underwriting criteria over the past year. This means we are saying “Yes” less often to members.
Member Growth Slowdown
You may have noticed that our membership growth is slowing-though still positive. The slowdown started in October of last year and has continued. . . we are bringing in about 250 fewer new members per month from indirect lending.
If we look just at core members, those who choose to join the credit union, we are bringing in about 350 fewer new members per month than last year.
We have a team analyzing the trends and trying to better understand where the changes are occurring. . . the question we should be thinking about is what is causing fewer people to make the decision to join. . .I would love to hear what ideas or thoughts others have.