Recently Ben Bernacke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve announced
that he would make no change to the interest rates Fed charges it’s
borrowing banks until 2013. What does that mean to the average
citizen? It means that the Federal Reserve Bank expects the recovery of our economy
to continue a slow, flat recovery for the next two years. What does that mean for our
membership? With interest rates remaining low, it means that your credit union’s earnings
will become stressed, as we continue to earn low rates on our investments, and at
the same time, for members it means that your borrowing rates will remain low, making
borrowing for that new vehicle, home improvement or new appliance.
Both of those two affects of low interest rates means that your credit union must continue
to look for ways to make the operation more efficient, look at our internal processes
for improvements and opportunities for cost savings. At that same time, when we look
at our processes we must look at all aspects, from how we package or bundle our services
to you, how much it cost the credit union to offer the service and product, and ensure
that we offer each of these services so they remain attractive to our members, as well as
offered in a manner that each service or product remains profitable.
While we remain profitable and well capitalized, with interest rates continuing to
remain at all time lows, we must make these changes to ensure that we are profitable in
the future.
Recently you received information about the new structure of our checking accounts.
As we looked at these accounts, reviewing how they were packaged we realized that
these accounts had had the same structure for more than twenty years. At the same
time, many more technology advances had been introduced and there were ways to
bundle our checking accounts, ensuring they remained attractive to our members, offering
the new services that have evolved over the last few years, and be less expensive on
the credit union. At the same time, if you have had your checking account at FCACU
for a long period of time, you were unaware of some of the new features services available
with checking accounts.
Our Pay-It-Forward Checking, with a corresponding Pay-It-Forward Savings is our
most popular checking account we offer. Pay it Forward Checking is a combination of
cost effective checking, tied to a high yielding savings account, currently earning 10%
a.p.y. All of our checking accounts have e-statements, e-alerts, bill pay, free remote deposit,
free online banking, free mobile banking. We still offer teller 24 for free for those
members that do not use online banking.
We are currently testing a reward checking account that we hope to introduce in late
October. We hope you will enjoy the monthly cash back reward that it will pay. Watch
your mail for details on the account, and how to change your account to a Reward
Checking Account.
While these new checking accounts are just some of the ways we continue to look at our
services, and make changes to offer you the most attractive, innovative services, at no
cost to you. We hope you like our Pay It Forward Checking, and our Reward Checking
when it is available.
Thank you for your continued support of your credit union. Your membership is
important.
Nancy M. Croix Stroud
President
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