Rio Grande Credit Union Reaches Out

As a low-income designated financial institution, the $340-million Albuquerque, N.M.-based Rio Grande Credit Union dedicates multiple resources and services to helping those frequently with limited access to financial services.

“We are constantly looking for ways to improve Rio Grande Credit Union,” Mike Athens, president/CEO, explained. “It’s about ensuring our efforts continually align with the needs of our communities.”

For the growing Rio Grande Credit Union, which has six branches and another on the way, it is more than respecting the credit union “people helping people” mantra; it is about reaching out to bring new members on board.

Starting with opening an account, which is not unlike opening a relationship at any other financial institution with one big exception. To open an account, potential members do not need the usually required Social Security number, they can use their individual taxpayer identification number. Athens said, “We don’t treat ITIN members or underserved members any differently. That’s our difference.”

RGCU also maintains a community outreach department and a full-time financial coach who offers individual counseling to anybody. In addition, they have a program to provide underserved children with financial education supported using monetary incentives; and offer a special account for teenagers without requiring a parent cosigner.

Backing the credit union in its efforts, Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Member Driven Technologies, a CUSO that hosts Symitar’s Episys platform through its private cloud alternative for core processing, which provides a SaaS-based core as well as support and assistance. The technology helps members of various backgrounds in their individual and unique financial journey, pointed out Athens.

The digital presence is likely where MDT plays the most significant role in regards to exposure to member-facing technology, Gary Lee, vice president of client relations and sales, MDT, suggested. “The ability to have very strong uptime/availability and be nimble with custom features from the electronic space has allowed us to help Rio Grande in the past and we hope to continue to strengthen our offerings in the future. In addition, the core uptime availability and simply the creative product set that Rio Grande offers to their members is made possible by the MDT/Symitar/Rio Grande relationship.”

To receive low-income designated financial institution status from the NCUA a majority of a credit union’s membership must meet certain low-income thresholds based on data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. The designation, Athens noted, helps those credit unions by:

• Providing an exception from the statutory cap on member business lending, which expands access to capital for small businesses and helps credit unions to diversity portfolios.
• Offering eligibility for grants and low-interest loans from the Community Development Revolving Loan Fund.
• Enabling credit unions to accept non-member deposits from any source.
• Providing authority to obtain supplemental capital.

Rio Grande Credit Union serves those with limited access to financial services in a number of ways, Athens explained. “We have a product to serve our community – including those with limited access to financial services – at every phase of their lives.”

For example, in partnership with Prosperity Works, a non-profit organization in Albuquerque, they developed a Prosperity Kids program that offers monetary incentives to help underserved kids save at an early age. “It is an Individual Development Account that helps kids learn saving skills and prepare them for eventual adulthood,” Athens noted. “The savings can give them a head start for a higher education or other life goals.” There is even an emergency savings feature for their parents to assist in times of distress.

Another illustration is the credit union’s JumpStart account, designed especially for teens, which does not require a parental cosigner. “This answers a specific need in our community, which sees 16-year-olds who are couch-surfers and otherwise homeless. They work, go to school and live life like an adult but, without safe access to their funds, have to carry cash in unsafe environments,” Athens said.

The Rio Grande CU CEO said they also treat mortgage loans for those with ITINs as they would for any other member. They provide the same type of application and documentation as those with Social Security numbers. “A member is a member and treated as such.”

The credit union recently started working closer with the Mexican Consulate to support individuals in transition, especially those who may not understand much about the U.S. banking system. Athens related how the credit union provides education around financial topics like credit and savings. Additionally, they hold biweekly informational tables to promote Rio Grande Credit Union and answer financial questions. “We will be working with them to create short videos talking about credit and other related financial topics.”

Rio Grande Credit Union also provides sponsorship support for events that celebrate Mexican culture. “By doing this work, we are helping reach underserved populations,” Athens said. “We are constantly looking for ways to make it easier for our members.” Such as maintaining a Spanish version of its website, which Athens added will be better in the first quarter 2020.

Rio Grande Credit Union began to focus on the immigrant market in 2014. Athens described how the credit union embraced serving immigrants by revising its policies and procedures, translating all marketing material and training staff. In June 2015 the Department of the Treasury recognized the substantial community work the credit union performed in Albuquerque and the South Valley by certifying RGCU as a Community Development Financial Institution.

In December 2015, the credit union received Juntos Avanzamos (meaning “Together we Advance”) designation, developed to formally recognize those U.S. credit unions with a history of serving the underserved, increasing members’ financial literacy and providing products and services that deliver a better alternative to payday lenders and cash-advance storefronts. Athens said, “As the Albuquerque Journal noted this past September, over 1 in 3 Albuquerque residents are unbanked; this designation recognizes the efforts of RGCU to introduce this population to a helpful part of the American financial system.”

In 2020, RGCU plans to serve their business community with new products. “We are looking for solutions that won’t leave behind our ITIN members,” Athens noted. “As with any new endeavor, there are some hurdles we’ll have to overcome, but we always seem to find a way.” He said they will continue to advance and develop their technologies and self-service channels, and design new enhancements with all members in mind.

“Working with our members and our community is part of our cooperative DNA. This includes the underserved communities and people of modest means,” Athens said. “The more people we serve, the more they take advantage of the services of our cooperative, the better off the credit union becomes and the more we can return. It is a wonderful cycle.”

Lee said, “When our company launched 16 years ago, our goal was to provide a hybrid-type solution in which we host the core processing hardware, as well as other ancillary solutions, but still give our credit union clients the ability to control their processing – much like an in-house credit union – if they so desire.”

Lee emphasized through the years, MDT continued to evolve and they still offer a hybrid solution. “We also place great emphasis on creating and providing automated tools that give our credit unions the choice of automating processes and/or driving processes manually.” Lee added MDT has become a tech integrator in a cloud computing capacity and continues to monitor financial services so it can answer the most routine question credit unions ask the CUSO: “What’s next?”

How MDT integrates into other ancillary products used by credit unions depends on whether the credit union has a third party willing to “write” real-time to the core, because MDT can provide a real-time API; and if the third-party solution the credit union evaluates works best from a batch extract perspective.

MDT primarily offers software-as-a-service related solutions. “We do our best to minimize our credit unions’ technology/hardware footprint so they can concentrate on serving their members and successfully running their financial institution,” Lee said. MDT serves a number of credit unions that maintain some of their technology in-house.