Payment Industry Insider

This series of posts will outline the sessions at the 2008 Partnership Symposium.

Session Speaker

Matt Davis, Director of Public Relations, Members Credit Union

Session Overview

As the guest speaker contest winner, Matt will reintroduce the concept of promoting thrift for credit unions. He will discuss some of the ways that credit unions across the country are promoting thrift, not only amongst their members, but also amongst the general community. Finally, Matt will introduce some exciting ways that your credit unions can recapture public goodwill with this concept.

Session Notes

Below are some of my highlights from Matt’s session.

We (CUs) are organized for the purpose of promoting thrift among our members and creating a source of credit for provident or productive purposes. [Federal Credit Union Act 1752]

Thrift is wise economy in the management of money and other resources.

People doing the right thing AND people doing the wrong thing are both failing at savings.

Our “What Are You Saving For?” program had a $285 budget, and we built something that works for us.

The WAYSF program was picked up in a story by Yahoo Finance and featured in Fast Company.

“Don’t tell me you can’t be innovative.”

Promoting thrift MIGHT be sending your customers elsewhere for business, but wouldn’t that demonstrate a level of trust amongst your members?

Financial literacy is an area that credit unions need to be involved in to keep their members educated.