Teachers Federal Credit Union, one of the largest credit unions in the United States with $9.2 billion assets and more than 420,000 members, raised more than $105,000 as the first-ever presenting sponsor for the American Cancer Society Making Strides of Long Island Walk. The Making Strides of Long Island Walk, which took place on Sunday, October 16, at Jones Beach State Park, is the largest Making Strides event in the country with 65,000 people in attendance. More than 300 Teachers employees participated in the walk and hundreds more helped fundraise a total of $106,535 for the fight against breast cancer, enabling the American Cancer Society to reach its goal of raising $2.1 million. “One in every eight women in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer. We are proud to support the American Cancer Society and play a role in funding research, patient support, and advocacy,” said Brad Calhoun, president and CEO of Teachers Federal Credit Union. “Building a strong community is one of our guiding principles, and I could not be more proud of how our team exemplified this through fundraising and volunteer efforts with Making Strides.” “The American Cancer Society and Making Strides Against Breast Cancer is one of the largest and most impactful movements to raise money and awareness in the fight against breast cancer, “ said Vicky Green, national strategic director of Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. “We unite companies and businesses, participants, survivors, and thrivers, all walking together to put an end to breast cancer.” Teachers is proud to partner with the American Cancer Society and support the Making Strides of Long Island Walk. Nearly 4 million women are living with a breast cancer diagnosis in the U.S. today, which is why the American Cancer Society has dedicated its time, energy, and resources to eliminate cancer for more than 109 years. Teaches remains committed to its community stewardship by focusing its charitable giving and volunteer efforts on initiatives in areas such as education, human services, economic development, and research. For more information on Teachers community initiatives, please visit teachersfcu.org/about/community.
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The National Credit Union Foundation (the Foundation) has confirmed over $200,000 has been committed to its CUAid disaster relief program in the weeks since Hurricanes Fiona and Ian devastated large parts of Puerto Rico and Florida respectively. After providing $575,000 to help credit union employees and volunteers affected by those two disasters, the Foundation issued a rare call to the credit union system, asking for additional donations to ensure CUAid could provide similar support in the event of another catastrophe. CUNA Mutual Group has led the way, announcing a $100,000 donation from its own foundation—in addition to $10,000 the organization previously donated in October. Alaska USA FCU, Bellco Credit Union, the Ohio Credit Union Foundation and TruMark Financial CU have also donated or committed to providing five-figures sums since September. More than 40 other individuals and organizations have also contributed in that time. “CUAid is the credit union difference in action,” said the National Credit Union Foundation’s Chief Financial and Operations Officer, André Parraway. “The fund carries a balance to ensure we can respond rapidly when disaster strikes, but Hurricanes Fiona and Ian changed the game. The financial support we’ve been able to provide in response to just those two events has far eclipsed the total CUAid spend in 2021. There was, and still is, so much need on the ground in Puerto Rico and Florida, and we know another natural disaster is always around the corner. CUAid is unsustainable without the ongoing support of the credit union system at large. We’re fortunate to have partners like CUNA Mutual Group that realize how important this is and step up when needed.” “CUNA Mutual Group is built on the principle of ‘people helping people,’” said CUNA Mutual Group’s Executive Vice President, Chief Enterprise Services Officer, Cedric Ellis. “The devastation caused by Hurricanes Ian and Fiona left many associated with credit unions vulnerable. It also provided an opportunity for CUNA Mutual to step up and lean into that founding principle.” The National Credit Union Foundation is still actively calling on credit unions and system partners to replenish the CUAid disaster relief fund with donations. Every penny donated goes directly to support credit union employees and volunteers when catastrophe strikes. From San Diego to far Northern California, and from the coastline to inland regions, loans to consumers and businesses across the state have been accelerating for most of 2022 at high year-over-year rates in many localities while deposit growth noticeably declined. However, this recent rapid loan growth is quickly slowing down going into late 2022 and early 2023. As 272 locally headquartered credit unions and their 13.1 million members across various counties within the Golden State blew through mid-year 2022, annual savings growth in deposit accounts versus loan growth (auto loans, mortgages, credit cards and other products) were taking very divergent paths from January to June of 2022. Overall lending growth had been red hot, but this trend is most likely cooling in the second half of 2022 as consumers head into the holiday season and a new year. This is on top of savings growth already slowing down much earlier this year as annualized inflation continues. Local California credit union CEOs and boards of directors are well aware of these and other recent trends all emerging at the same time, including quick and drastic short-term interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve, as well as many economists continuing to forecast economic volatility well into 2023. “Yearly loan growth at several financial institutions — many credit unions and banks alike — should start noticeably slowing down as we transition into late 2022 and early 2023,” said Robert Eyler, economist for the California Credit Union League. “2022’s hot loan growth for much of the year was probably a sign of consumers trying to borrow before interest rates go even higher. Many consumers had rising-rate expectations throughout 2022 and attempted to lock-in rates on loans while they were relatively low. That’s changing.” Agent IQ, a provider of digital customer engagement solutions specializing in making financial services more personal again, announced today that it has successfully raised $10 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Mendon Venture Partners and included participation from renowned VCs Acronym VC and Sierra Ventures and innovative banks including FNBO and others. "Agent IQ's value proposition is among the most relevant opportunities right now for banks to partner and participate in leveraging innovative technologies in both an offensive and defensive manner,” said John Clausen, Founding Partner, Mendon Venture Partners. “The company is at the forefront of relationship banking, helping banks engage customers in ways that they have come to demand. We are thrilled to have led this round, as well as to have joined the board.” For years, community banks and credit unions have distinguished themselves from larger competitors and fintechs based on the quality and depth of their customer and member relationships. As market adoption of digital banking has accelerated, however, so too has a relationship disconnect between many consumers and their financial institutions. Funding investors recognize this market opportunity and Agent IQ’s ability to address it. Since 2018, Agent IQ has focused its attention on the retail and commercial banking market with a commitment to helping financial institutions ensure that digital banking remains highly personal for customers. Through its cost effective, AI augmented, scalable Lynq™ digital engagement platform (featuring messaging capabilities with the ability to translate real-time to more than 100 languages, video chat and AI-powered real-time insights), Agent IQ enables banks and credit unions to establish and grow happier, more loyal, more profitable relationships with customers and members. “As the banking industry embraces the concept of digital transformation, too often it has been forced to sacrifice the fostering of deep, meaningful customer relationships in the name of on-demand convenience and digital capability,” said Slaven Bilac, CEO & Co-Founder, Agent IQ. “Agent IQ exists to change this narrative. We are grateful for the trust that our investors have in our organization, and we will leverage this capital to lead community banking toward an environment where consumers derive the same level of personal benefit through the digital channel as they traditionally did through the branch, while also enabling banks and CUs to differentiate themselves with personal, seamless and efficient service.” Desert Financial Credit Union endowed $93,000 to a Northern Arizona Healthcare (NAH) scholarship program. Moving forward, all NAH employees can apply to receive a minimum of two $1,500 expendable scholarships each year in perpetuity. Arizona’s largest credit union also was named title sponsor for the inaugural Northern Arizona Healthcare Scholarship and Awards Celebration. During the event, this year’s Desert Financial Credit Union Health Care Scholarship recipients were announced. The recipients include, Jessi Holt, CVICU, Critical Care; Kamryn Pusl, Emergency Department Technician; Chris Nez, Pathfinder Health Manager; and Caitlin Boren, Nurse Educator. “We are honored to continue our partnership with Desert Financial Credit Union,” said Maraka Oltrogge, NAH vice president of philanthropy. “Our entire scholarship and awards program is based on the outpouring of support from community members and internal leaders who see the value in lifting up NAH employees and giving them every opportunity to strengthen their skills.” The contribution from Desert Financial supports NAH and its management team in creating learning and professional development opportunities for employees so they can continue to provide the highest level of care to patients and the community. “It is a privilege to partner with NAH by supporting the current and future health care workers who dedicate their lives to helping the community,” said Desert Financial Credit Union President and CEO Jeff Meshey. “Our organization knows how important it is to recruit and retain health care workers in our community and we are pleased that we can celebrate them at this year’s inaugural celebration.” Earlier this year, Desert Financial Credit Union donated $115,000 to Flagstaff-area organizations to celebrate the grand opening of its first branch in the community. The Flagstaff branch, which opened in July 2022, is the 48th Desert Financial location in Arizona. Trellance, the leading provider of data analytics and business intelligence solutions for credit unions, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of 2020 Analytics, a premier loan portfolio analytics service provider based in Tampa, Florida. Trellance will incorporate 2020 Analytics capabilities for loan portfolio analysis, collateral valuation and credit scoring, concentration risk assessment, stress-testing, CECL calculations, credit line management, and peer analytics to enhance services that identify and grow profitability while better managing risk. The acquisition will also expand Trellance’s client base. Tom Davis, president and CEO of Trellance, said the 2020 Analytics acquisition will provide immediate value to Trellance credit union clients. “Our dedication to providing credit unions with best-in-class analytics means we are continuously developing and acquiring technology that augments our tech stack. With deeper business intelligence and more actionable insights from 2020 Analytics, credit unions can manage their portfolios more dynamically, to quickly and proactively respond to market trends.” Services that provide insights into loan portfolio development are in high demand right now, and Trellance and 2020 Analytics saw a joint opportunity to better meet the demand. “For nearly 15 years, we have considered ourselves an extension of the credit unions we serve,” said Dan Price, president of 2020 Analytics. “We believe we can serve them even better now as part of Trellance, combining our strengths to revolutionize the ways credit unions manage their portfolios and improve returns.” Acquiring 2020 Analytics is Trellance’s next step in its recent period of accelerated growth. Earlier in 2022, the company announced that it was adding a Talent Services business division and expanding its presence globally into India, expecting to add more than 200 new employees. The acquisition is expected to become final in early November. The 2020 Analytics staff will be retained as full-time Trellance employees. ASA is an embedded fintech solution that connects financial institutions with customer-facing fintechs in a secure, compliant and easy to implement marketplace. The company today announced that its consumer-facing app, ASA Vault, is available in the Apple App and Google Play Stores and the issuance of its patent protecting this new open banking technology. The app allows customers to connect with fintechs without sharing any private or sensitive information, allowing them to try out the newest technology in a safe, risk-free way. ASA has introduced a new version of open banking in which fintechs are contractually prohibited from competing with banks and credit unions. The institutions can leverage this version of embedded fintech to maintain relevance and prominence in their customers’ and members’ lives. “ASA is transforming the way institutions and fintechs work together, all with the end goal of helping consumers and businesses improve their financial empowerment,” said Lisa Gold Schier, chief strategy officer of ASA. “By decreasing the regulatory risk and the cumbersome one-to-one integrations traditionally associated with bank-fintech partnerships, we are unlocking industry wide innovation with the first ever exponential growth platform for banking.” The ASA Vault App includes an asset tracker that centralizes and aggregates all relevant accounts, assets, debt and identity data into a single location. The tracker provides account holders with a comprehensive view of their finances, tracks historical transactions and provides insights into how their net worth has changed over time. Such functionality drives stronger and more frequent engagement with partner banks and credit unions. “The ASA Vault app helps banks and credit unions better understand their customers and ultimately win more business, all while empowering account holders with deep visibility into their holistic financial picture,” said Landon Glenn, CEO and founder of ASA. “With ASA, banks and credit unions can securely extend their brand into everything their customers and members do in ecommerce. This makes them the hub of financial adoption, maintaining account holder relationships and providing financial empowerment through individualized choice.” IMM, the only eSignature provider of eSignature and digital transaction solutions exclusively for financial institutions, today announced record sales, reporting more than 66.5% increased sales-year-to-date for the same period last year. Furthermore in 2022, approximately 35% of IMM’s new customers came from competitive displacements whereby clients were seeking alternatives to their legacy eSign solutions. Multiple institutions cited IMM’s domain expertise, as well as its singular focus on banks and credit unions as primary drivers in their decision to change eSignature providers. IMM’s premier eSignature platform, IMM eSign delivers seamless interface capabilities financial institutions’ existing business systems such as lending, account opening and ECM/Imaging for archival. Additionally, IMM’s large customer base continues to expand as many of IMM’s long-time customers added new modules or services to broaden their digital transaction processing and provide a universal digital process across all customer channels and experiences. With IMM eSign, institutions can transition to a complete “end-to-end” error-free, digital environment that simplifies the account opening process, streamlines loan originations and closings, and also provides on-demand account service and maintenance such as stop payments or address changes. The institutions will leverage IMM’s eSignature platform in conjunction with their existing core banking systems, popular Imaging/ECM systems, as well as other business applications used across the financial institution. IMM’s Senior Vice President Markets and Strategy, Michael Ball, said, “Consumers now expect to be able to complete all aspects of their finances at a time and place that is most convenient to their schedule. To ensure future success, financial institutions must give account holders the ability to quickly and easily complete transactions and sign documents in an end-to-end digital, remote environment. We have worked in tandem with banks and credit unions exclusively for the past two decades. We truly understand the ins and outs of the daily operations, regulations and overall business environment of a financial institution which has proven to be invaluable to our clients.” Powering millions of end-to-end digital transactions each month, IMM eSign seamlessly interfaces with existing business systems to optimize back-office operations and provide a more dynamic and engaging customer experience. The transaction experience is frictionless and easy to use for financial institution employees while maintaining the safety and security for customers to sign documents remotely. Finalytics.ai powers segment-of-one digital experiences for community financial institutions. The company published today its fifth annual report on the digital experiences offered by the 100 largest credit unions in the United States. The report explores how effectively credit unions have been in providing digital experiences that can be leveraged as a competitive advantage. The Finalytics.ai 2023 Credit Union Digital Experience report evaluates each credit union’s website and related areas such as, online account origination, digital marketing, key features and functionality, SEO optimization, web analytics, overall member experience, and security and privacy. The credit unions who achieved the highest average scores across all categories – on a one to five scale with one being “poor” and five “most innovative” - include VyStar Credit Union (3.39), Alliant Credit Union (3.08), Community America Credit Union (2.79), Wings Financial Credit Union (2.79), and Redwood Credit Union (2.70). Key findings from the report include:
The primary finding of the report is that many credit unions are not investing in the digital capabilities that meet current and prospective members’ wants and/or needs. This means that the traditional selling point for credit unions - better in-branch support and service – is not translating into a digital experience that differentiates them from competitors in the market. With the majority of financial services now being consumed via digital channels, this inability to create a relational environment in the digital space is an existential threat that must become the singular priority for credit union leadership. As noted in the report, those consumers that are satisfied with the level of trust they have in their credit union increased in the last few years but remains well below 50%. To maintain and improve member satisfaction, credit unions will have to create segment of one digital experiences for prospective and current members that go beyond simple personalization and broad segmentation. New technologies will be required to achieve this goal and there are several products poised to help in the market. Craig McLaughlin, CEO of Finalytics.ai, commented, “Our goal with this report is to provide a useful framework to analyze the quality of digital experiences in the industry and help credit unions build a strong digital strategy. Credit unions are working hard to meet their members’ needs, but the report indicates that these efforts are going to need to be supplemented if credit unions want to win in the marketplace. By leveraging modern technologies, credit unions can move beyond a transactional, generalized digital banking experience and deliver branch-like banking on digital channels, at scale.” Download the Finalytics.ai 2023 here to learn more about the findings. The National Credit Union Foundation (the Foundation) has announced the addition of Jamie Chandler as FinHealth Director. As FinHealth Director, Chandler will lead the Foundation’s efforts to strengthen the understanding and support of financial well-being across the credit union movement. Her role will also oversee the operations and outputs of the FinHealth Fund—a multimillion-dollar initiative delivering on key financial well-being strategies to benefit credit union members, employees and communities. “We are thrilled to have Jamie join our team,” said Chad Helminak, the Foundation’s Chief Impact Officer. “Her experience developing innovative financial health initiatives will be a powerful addition to the Foundation. Her leadership will be instrumental in the Foundation catalyzing further change across the credit union movement and help improve financial well-being for all.” Chandler joins the Foundation after serving as the Senior Financial Health Program Specialist at University Federal Credit Union in Austin, Texas, where she led the planning, development and management of the organization’s financial health program for their 780 employees and over 300k members. She also served as a Certified Credit Union Financial Counselor (CCUFC) for employees. An Army veteran, Chandler is actively engaged with several organizations that support veterans and the first responder community. “I am excited to be joining the incredible team at the Foundation,” said Chandler. “I am deeply passionate about growing and evolving financial health, and I am looking forward to working alongside credit unions to drive the mission of financial well-being for all into the future.” |
Author: Mike LawsonMarried to a most gorgeous and wonderful wife, raising 5 kiddos (including twins!), enjoy helping others tell their stories, and love surfing SoCal waves. Keep it simple. Archives
May 2024
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