The credit union deposit portfolio is in flux. The industry’s loan performance has gone gangbusters the past several quarters, driving the loan-to-share ratio to its highest point in the past decade. In addition, continued raises to the fed funds rate has required strategic conversations on product pricing.
This year, CreditUnions.com readers keyed into deposit stories. Here are eight of your favorites, based on page views.
A year-old debit swipe and savings plan at Community First Credit Union of Florida ($1.6B, Jacksonville, FL) offers financial wellness for members and additional income for its own bottom line. The north Florida credit union launched Save My Change in October 2017. The opt-in program rounds up a member’s debit transactions to the nearest dollar and deposits those pennies — and nickels and dimes — into a savings account. Such programs have been around for some time, but Community First offers a twist.
For the past decade, the federal funds rate has hovered at or near 0%. This is the lowest rate in the history of the Federal Reserve and is the result of the central bank’s efforts to encourage spending, borrowing, and investment to bring the United States out of the Great Recession. Consequently, borrowers have enjoyed an unprecedented run of low loan rates. “Consumers have grown accustomed to really low mortgage rates, auto loan rates, and credit card rates,” says Todd Harris, CEO of Technology Credit Union ($2.7B, San Jose, CA). That’s about to change. But Technology has been prepping for this rising rate environment for the past half-decade. Find out how.
Health savings accounts comprise approximately 9.6% of the deposit portfolio at Everence Federal Credit Union ($195.7M, Lancaster, PA). That was the fifth-highest percentage of all credit unions in the United States for the first quarter of 2018. What makes this product such a large part of Everence’s operations? To begin with, it has an innovative design mixed with what credit union CEO Kent Hartzler calls a “newfound legitimization” as a long-term savings vehicle.
Member loyalty is adding up at one Oregon cooperative thanks to the wild success of the Ownership Account, a non-transactional savings account that comes with every membership at Rogue Credit Union ($1.5B, Medford, OR). The account rewards members for their participation in the Rogue Rewards benefit programs that include cash back on credit cards, rounding up debit card charges, e-statement sign-up bonuses, youth account incentives, and sweeps from other deposit accounts. Members can keep their money in the Ownership Account as long as they want — and currently earn a return of 3%, well above market rates — but once they take it out, they can’t re-deposit it. That’s not a bad incentive to nurture a nest egg.