Many CUs offer IRAs but few provide IDAs, NAFCU survey finds

ARLINGTON, Va.-NAFCU’s monthly Flash Report found that while all the credit unions surveyed offer their members Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), very few offer Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). IDAs are a matched savings program to help low-income consumers build wealth. NAFCU economists found that every responding credit union to the survey offered IRAs but just 1% offered IDAs. And even with popular items like IRAs, credit unions do not have to invest a lot of money in marketing them. Twenty-six percent said they spent 5% of their annual marketing budget on IRAs, while 24% said they spent about 1% of their marketing budget on the retirement accounts. One-fifth of respondents said they did not spend a dime for marketing on IRAs. The remaining 30% indicated levels between 0.5% and 10% of their marketing budgets. “It is evident from the Flash survey that many of the surveyed credit unions consider retirement planning and savings services important to their members,” the study concluded. Nearly a quarter (24%) of responding credit unions offered annuities, while 45% said they did so through their Credit Union Service Organizations (CUSOs), the survey discovered. Thirty-three percent said their CUSO provides formal investment advice and financial planning, 30% provided insurance products, and 25% provide IRA rollover accounts. The CUSOs also offer trust services (7%), reverse annuity mortgages (4%), and “other services” (1%), of which most were accounting and tax related.