D.C.-Area Credit Union Offers Immigrant Loans

SkyPoint FCU’s Pathway Loans are designed to cover expenses related to immigration processes.

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A small Maryland credit union is offering residents unsecured loans to help them pay for the expensive, time-consuming process of immigration.

SkyPoint Federal Credit Union, based in Germantown, Md., 27 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. ($182.4 million in assets, 13,933 members) announced Monday that it expects to start processing loans this month.

The Pathway Loan is an unsecured loan that offers a fixed interest rate, repayment terms up to 36 months and loan amounts up to $4,000. It was launched in January, but the credit union has just begun a full marketing initiative to make people aware of the Pathway Loan in the areas it serves: Washington, D.C.; Montgomery and Frederick counties in Maryland, running northwest from the capital; and Arlington County, Alexandria and Falls Church on the other side of the border in Virginia.

Sue Hoefs, SkyPoint’s director of lending, said the Pathway Loan is part of the credit union’s community impact initiatives.

“We’re really proud of this new program and are very excited to announce it to our communities,” Hoefs said. “We designed the Pathway Loan to be a simple solution to assist our community members during a very important and exciting time in their lives.”

SkyPoint is a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). As part of the federal grants SkyPoint has earned, the credit union has committed to serving unbanked and underbanked populations within its field of membership, which immigrant families are often part of.

“This also underscores our ‘We Make Banking Simple’ philosophy,” Hoefs said. “The immigration process is daunting enough, and it should never be the case that it is cost prohibitive. This loan makes it simple to alleviate financial stresses related to those costs.”

Other credit unions have been making loans designed for immigrants for years. Most commonly they are built to allow verification through Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) from the IRS because they lack Social Security numbers.

Leaders in this area have included Point West Credit Union of Portland, Ore. ($105.6 million in assets, 10,718 members) and Illiana Financial Credit Union ($276.5 million in assets, 24,475 members) based in Calumet City, Ill., between the southside of Chicago and Gary, Ind.