by Robbie Thompson, President/CEO

CUAD has made a number of positive changes over the last year. These changes have enhanced the value of CUAD membership while helping credit unions to better serve their members. Besides re-doubling advocacy efforts, upgrading educational offerings, providing additional regulatory compliance support, improving communications, and doing more to create awareness of credit unions, CUAD has added some additional tangible benefits that can be utilized by all credit unions and is adding a few more for 2013.  Many of these benefits are the product of cooperation with other associations, or CUAD was able to purchase these through the power of aggregation.  Below is brief overview of a few of the new tangible benefits added in the last year or so and of those coming in 2013.

CU Policy Pro

CU Policy Pro is a complete, compliant, on-line policy manual. It provides over 200 policies drafted by attorneys, accountants and other credit union industry experts.  This manual is updated regularly as new policies become necessary or as rules and regulations change.  It is in an easy to use format where the entire manual can be used by the credit union, or polices can be pulled out and modified to fit your specific credit unions needs. This product can cost up to $2,000 per credit union to purchase individually, but through the power of aggregation CUAD was able to negotiate a reduced price and provide this as a dues supported benefit.  This product directly benefits credit unions by ensuring their policies are compliant; saves time by not having staff drafting policies from scratch; and saves the cost of having to purchase this or a similar product individually.  If you don’t have a CU Policy Pro password or would like more information about CU Policy Pro, contact Amy Kleinschmit akleinschmit@cuad.coop.

RateWatch Semi-Annual Fee Survey.

CUAD has contracted with RateWatch to provide all credit unions with a Fee survey.  This semi-annual fee survey provided in February and August provides fee averages for banks and credit unions in North Dakota and South Dakota.  It gives average fees for over 100 different categories of fees charged by financial institutions. This product would cost thousands of dollars for a credit union to obtain individually. This benefit of membership directly helps credit unions determine the right fees to charge; saves staff time researching various competitor’s fees; and saves the credit union the cost of purchasing this information individually. If you would like more information about the RateWatch Semi-Annual Fee Survey or would like to see past fee surveys, contact Robbie Thompson at rthompson@cuad.coop.

CU Analyzer

CU Analyzer is offered through Callahan’s and Associates, a well respected and long-time industry provider of credit union analytic tools.  This interactive program provides actionable and easy to use analytical information that can be utilized by all staff and board members. With this tool, credit unions can analyze performance relative to peers groups, establish meaningful benchmarks and goals, understand ratios, compare financial strategies and, track progress with the latest data. It provides clear and accurate data in an easy to use and easy to understand format.  Individually credit unions would pay at least two to three thousand dollars for this or a similar product.  This benefit directly helps credit unions by saving them time searching through other data, such as 5300s, to do analysis; provides insight to help better manage the credit union; and saves the cost of purchasing the product individually.  If you need a password to CU Analyzer or need helping understanding CU Analyzer contact Karla Clark at kclark@cuad.coop.

League InfoSight

InfoSight was just added to the CUAD benefits suite in December of 2012.  InfoSight provides a compliance resource site that is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  This benefit provides an easy to use intuitive site that makes it very easy to find the answer to your compliance questions and/or to find additional compliance resources.  It includes not only federal compliance information, but also compliance information from 44 states.  Each state league is required to maintain its own compliance material and thus the information is always up to date and accurate. T his is the only place where credit unions can find both state and federal compliance information specific to credit unions. Subscriptions to a site like this, if another existed, likely would be thousands of dollars per year. This benefits helps credit unions stay in compliance; saves time by not having to search multiple sites for compliance information; and saves the expense of having to subscribe to one or more compliance resources to find this information.  For more information about InfoSight or if you don’t have a password contact Amy Kleinschmit at akleinchmit@cuad.coop.

RateMap

Coming in 2013, CUAD will be providing all credit unions with RateMap from RateWatch. RateMap provides credit unions with the online tools to see what key rates other financial institutions are currently offering.  The insights gained will help credit union decision makers to determine what products to offer and how to price them.  It provides rates for multiple deposit and lending products and is both visually appealing and easy to use.  This benefit helps members earn more and get more loans and deposits by pricing products right; staff does not need to partake in time consuming searches to find this information; and it saves the credit union the cost of paying for such a product themselves. For more information on RateWatch, contact Amy Kleinschmit at Akleinschmit@cuad.coop

Benefits of Membership Report

By the end of first quarter of 2013, all credit unions will be provided with a Benefits of Membership report.  Using information provided by the credit union and 5300 data, CUNA’s research department will develop a detailed report for each credit union that tells all credit unions how much members on average save by being a member of the credit union.  This will be tremendously useful information in each credit union’s outreach and marketing efforts.  It will allow each credit union to tout how much money members save as a result of being a member of the credit union.  This will help credit unions by providing a powerful marketing tool and by saving them the cost of $500 or more to have such a report prepared individually.  If you have questions about the Benefits of Members Report, contact Robbie Thompson at rthompson@cuad.coop

CUAD has conservatively estimated that if a credit union purchased all of these benefits individually the price would be between $6,000 and $10,000.  As a CUAD member, all of these products are provided at no additional cost and are a dues supported service.  That is the power of cooperation, of being united, and of aggregation.  We hope that you take full advantage of each of these services and the support of CUAD staff. As always, your Association is just a phone call away – ready and willing to help.