Calling All Credit Unions - How CUs are Helping After Irene

 by Ron Daly 

Hurricane Irene is still affecting a large swath of the East Coast, leaving thousands without power and with significant home damage and flooding. In hopes of helping members, credit unions on the East Coast and from around the country are reaching out to help. 

From USA Today:

When homeowners in the Houston area had to wait 45 days for insurance checks after Hurricane Katrina, Chartway Federal Credit Union advanced personal loans so customers could stay in hotels and pay monthly bills until they received the insurance money. "And we'll do the same now," says Ron Burniske, CEO of Chartway, which has 63 branches across the country...

Chartway is willing to let members affected by Hurricane Irene skip loan payments. It says its plans will evolve as it hears what members need. "Unlike most institutions, we will not go out and decide what they want and need," Burniske says. "We can turn a product around in 12 hours."

On the larger, national level, NCUF has activated CUAid. From their website:

The National Credit Union Foundation (NCUF) has activated the online disaster relief system CUAid.coop to raise money for credit union people along the East Coast affected by Hurricane Irene...

Credit union supporters in every state can now make donations through a secured website that accepts credit cards and wire transfers (www.cuaid.coop). CUAid is the only program of its kind that enables credit union employees, volunteers, and members, as well as credit unions and credit union organizations across the U.S., to contribute directly to support other credit union people.

A tip of the hat, both to Chartway and NCUF. Way to move fast and respond to a situation that has left a lot of your members and clients hurting. Here's hoping more folks get the help they need as we move toward recovery and clean-up. 

These are just two of many initiatives that CUs and their organizations are putting out there to help. Can you share another in our comments section? 

A Must-Read Blog Post on Security, Safety and Liability

by Ron Daly 

This blog post from the NAFCU Services blog should be a must-read for those of us in financial services - bank, credit union or otherwise. You might remember some months back when the story of Comerica and Experi-Metal hit the news. According to this post from the NAFCU Services Blog: 

Earlier this summer, a U.S. District Court ordered Comerica to reimburse Michigan-based Experi-Metal Inc. over a half-million dollars for funds the company lost after Comerica approved nearly two million dollars in fraudulent wire transfers from Experi-Metal’s account following a phishing attack against Experi-Metal.

As David Frankil from NAFCU Services points out:

This case addresses one of the most challenging security questions facing financial services today – who is ultimately responsible, the credit union or the member? That should be a trick question, since the answer is really both. However, this court case opens up significant liability for credit unions and emphasizes the need for both extensive in-house anti-phishing and fraud detection capabilities, as well as extensive educational efforts aimed at members.

The highlight was added by me.  It's imperative that members and customers get educated about what to expect from your emails and it's your duty as a sender to keep on top of phishing attacks and properly inform members when one occurs. 

Are you Delivering Financial Telephone Books and Newspapers?

by Ron Daly

Some things just never change, but should. Two examples.

My family and I returned home this week from our west coast vacation. As we turned into the driveway my daughter spotted a large plastic package with items inside leaning on the mailbox. Being nine, she naturally assumes that every package delivered to the house is something for her. As I exited the car I saw her struggling to carry the package with two large yellow books and one large white book inside. Dropping the 1,000 page books at my feet she asked “Dad, what are these?”

To which I replied, "Those are telephone books, sometimes referred to as 'yellow pages'."

If you have a nine-year-old you know there are even more questions to follow...I believe it went something along these lines.

Q: What are they used for?

A: People use them to look up up the telephone number of someone they want to call or a businesses they might want to hire.

Q: You mean they don’t Google them, look them up in their Outlook contacts or call 411?

A: Guess there are still some folks out there that need them.

Q: Did you pay for these books or ask for them?

A: No, dear.

Looking down the street at all the bags of books lining the driveways as far as the eye could see–

Q: Why did they print all these books, waste all this paper and leave them on everyone’s driveway if no one pays for them or uses them?

A: Guess it’s a conspiracy.

Thumbing through the A-L Yellow Pages she stopped in the “D” section

Q: Dad, why isn’t DigitalMailer listed in the Yellow pages?

A: Well, we are a digital communication company and it doesn’t make sense to spend money this way. Besides, any person that has to use the yellow pages to find us is probably not ready for the products and services we offer.

Q: What good is this ad on this page? It’s in black on yellow paper. There are no moving images and nothing interesting about it. I can’t click the website address to learn more and I can’t hit the phone number and have my cell phone dial the call for me.

A: Not everything keeps up with the changes going on. This is just an old-fashioned way people use to find information.

Her final comment as she walked the books directly over to our recycling bin and dropped them in… "What a waste of good trees."

One more example to share, from a conversation we had with a lovely lady I’ll refer to as “Marge” at the large national newspaper in our area. We decided rather than to stop the Sunday paper while we were gone, we’d just cancel it altogether. After waiting in the call queue for a while Marge was lucky enough to get our call. Here goes:

Ron – We’d like to cancel our Sunday paper subscription.

Marge – Why?

Ron – We get our news from other sources, we never read it and we wind up just recycling it each week.

Marge – What if we give you weekdays free?

Ron – (Thinking to myself – OK Marge, I don’t read Sunday and now you want to give me six more days not to read and recycle?) No thanks, we just want to save the $15 per month by cutting out something we don’t need.

Marge – You know, if you use just three coupons per week from the Sunday coupon section the paper will pay for itself with the money you save.

Ron – (Thinking to myself – Ok Marge, I’m not a “35-cents-off-of-ground-round-cut-that-coupon-out” kinda guy, but I do like that song. Besides that, my yellow and white flowered coupon organizer was retired about two weeks prior to my marriage, never to be resurrected again.) No thanks, we can get coupons and discount codes online for most of the stuff we need.

Marge – What if we just charge you 59 cents each week of the Sunday paper? Will you stay?

Ron – (Now I’m starting to boil realizing that I’ve been paying $15 per month for at least ten years for something that Marge is now selling to me for just over $2.40 per month) No thanks, just cancel the subscription.

I can remember which one of us hung up on the other, but the paper has stopped showing up.

Some things just never change, but should. So, my question is… Are you still delivering financial telephone books and newspapers? Are you relying on old systems and technology to reach customers faster and in the communication channel they want? Have you looked at the organization to make sure that you are not? Do you have any idea where financial services are going on the web and in the branches? Is your Virtual Branch even open?

We’ve launched an eStrategy presentation on the future of financial services that is perfect for senior management and Boards of Directors. Contact me at rdaly@digitalmailer.com for more information.