We’re trying something different this month and coming to you to talk about Credit Unions.
When I was growing up, I had no idea what a credit union was. And I’m sure most of you didn’t either before you joined our Credit Union. And we are working very hard to change that. It is a slow slog to say the least.
We are a part of an Open Your Eyes To A Credit Union campaign which you may have seen on social media. We’re very excited about that. Just to get the word out about credit unions. We think we’re great—we want our members to know that we’re great too. And I think a really good example of that happened just recently with the economic stimulus payments. We got notification on March 12th that we were getting $14 million in for our members.
We went ahead and posted that money on the twelfth. We did not receive that money from the IRS until March 17th so that really sets us apart from other big banks out there. I know there was a lot of controversy about when people were actually going to get their money. Because they thought they should get it on the twelfth and that didn’t happen. But our members got their money on the twelfth. And for that it cost the credit union about $140 because we didn’t actually have that money from the IRS yet. So we think that you are well worth $140 and we are happy to do that for you. Just like we do with Direct Deposit and posting that two days early for our members. We think that’s a great member benefit and we are always trying to make things better for our members for their financial health and wellness. And we think that goes a long way towards doing that.
As a credit union, we also try to provide the best value for you — high savings rates, lower loan rates — I think if you compare us to the big banks you’ll see that our rates are really much better on the savings side. Although they are very, very low today, they are still better than what the big banks are providing you. We also encourage you to bring other members into our field of membership and join the Credit Union.
We have added the American Consumer Council for you to be able to do that and we will also pay you $70 for every member that joins our Credit Union based on your referral. So again, we think we are a great value. We try to explain that to you every day and hope you see the value as well in your Credit Union. We are here for you.
Thanks, take care.
Laura Campbell
President & CEO
