Affinity FCU Reveals Pointers for Business Program Growth: Onsite at CUBG

PORTLAND, Ore. – When it comes to business services offerings, many credit unions are still taking baby steps and could benefit from advice on how to develop a program. At the 2019 National Business Services Conference hosted by CUSO CU Business Group last week, executives from two credit unions shared step-by-step details on how they built and/or revamped their credit unions’ business services programs, setting their institutions up for future success in the space.

Here, CU Times shares how Affinity Federal Credit Union grew business relationships through Treasury management products. Part one of this two-part article showcased lessons from HAPO Community Credit Union’s commercial services journey.

Affinity’s Business Program Overhaul

About three years ago, the $3.3 billion, Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Affinity Federal Credit Union began taking a close look at why its business accounts were not as “sticky” as they should be. It offered a full range of free business accounts, yet the credit union was lacking on the deposit side and had a very high loan to share ratio.

As Kathleen Metz, vice president of commercial lending for Affinity, explained in a keynote session, the credit union identified several culprits of the problem:

• Many of the business accounts were in fact consumer accounts that were given a business title.
• Business members were turned off by certain rules. For example, Affinity lost one business member because they would have had to wait 30 days to obtain a remote deposit capture scanner, Metz said.
• Branch staff members were “absolutely terrified of the letters LLC,” according to Metz. “They weren’t comfortable when a business member walked into a branch and they had to take care of them – staff would run into the bathroom and hide,” she joked. In addition, the marketing department wasn’t promoting business services at all, Metz said.

Over the next few years, Affinity focused on the following to help remedy the situation:

• Convincing upper management that more work needed to be done on the business side. “Having focus from management is so important,” Metz said.
• Reviewing, redesigning and creating business products. Affinity worked with CU Business Group on this effort, which included rolling out an analyzed checking product that required new software from a third party, and implementing some new fees. Educating members about the new fees so the credit union wouldn’t lose them was important, as was launching marketing campaigns around the new products and changes.
• Enticing new business members with a strong, promotional money market account rate.
• Creating a team of business bankers by making new hires as well as promoting staff from within.
• Launching “Business University” – a training course designed to help frontline staff learn the basics of assisting business members. “We decided everyone who was member-facing needed to get comfortable with businesses,” Metz said. “They need to be confident enough to ask the right questions, or get the member set up with a business banker.”

Metz said Affinity still has work to do in the business services department. For example, she said it’s still challenging to keep upper management focused on improving business services, and while the promotional money market account did well, it’s still difficult to obtain business deposits. She also noted the branches need to create sales goals for commercial products, and that marketing efforts for business services are still minimal.

However, since implementing these changes, the credit union has experienced tremendous growth and improved its loan to share ratio, Metz said. She also revealed a specific result that she said made her the most proud.

“We measure member engagement levels, and this year, our most engaged member was a business member,” she said. “The point I tried to drive home three years ago is finally coming to fruition.”