By Alix Patterson.

What the YMCA can teach credit unions about evolving to meet the social and economic challenges of today while staying true to their core values.

On a recent vacation to Florida, I was lamenting my inability to get in a daily swim since the hotel pool was the shape of a kidney bean and not much larger. My father, ever one to encourage my (sporadically) healthy behavior, promptly pulled out his YMCA membership card from back home in Bethesda, Maryland and offered to take me over to the local YMCA. I was skeptical. The local Y?

Little did I realize what the Y represents today. The Venice YMCA has some of the most advanced facilities I’ve ever had the pleasure of using. While I was enjoying a solitary lane in an Olympic-size pool, others—men and women, young and old—were pumping steel in the gym, enjoying yoga classes, even sipping coffee or fruit smoothies in the upstairs café. While waiting for my sons to finish their post-swim showers (a surprise hit for 2- and 4-year olds), I perused the announcements board, reading about classes to promote healthy eating, after-school care, support groups for everything from walking twice a week to running full marathons and more.

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Setting Lofty Goals and Being Entrepreneurial Drives FSCC Forward

By Bonnie Kramer, COO of FSCC, San Dimas, Calif.

Financial Service Centers Cooperative (FSCC) is a non-profit cooperative CUSO that began as a shared branching network to give credit unions a cost-effective way to expand their footprints. Our mission is to “provide a cooperative network of convenient, low-cost access points so that credit unions can compete.” Our vision is simply to make American credit unions the most convenient financial institutions in the nation.

FSCC began in 1990 with the idea of establishing a system of stand-alone shared branches. This proved expensive and as a result, our ability to expand the network was limited. We needed a new model. We explored the concept of outlets, and in fact pioneered the effort to create an interface that would work with major teller platforms. We found a way to make many different teller platforms act as though they were one. This was a technological breakthrough that has carried FSCC forward ever since.

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By Seena Faqiri

Credit union branches are sprouting at a rate of almost 1,000 a year, but generally these are not the branches of small credit unions. With total office expenses rising 11.4% in 2006, even when credit unions outgrow their only branch, they find it very expensive to expand.

In June 2001, three credit unions had a ribbon cutting ceremony — at the same time and at the same location. Call Federal Credit Union ($257M in Richmond, VA) made this possible by opening a new branch in the nation’s first Credit Union Mall. As only credit unions would do, Call FCU, under the leadership of Roger Ball, invited two other smaller credit unions to share a new facility in Midlothian, Va. The invaluable expansion allowed both Connects Federal Credit Union ($64.4M in Richmond, VA) and Partners Financial Federal Credit Union ($59.5M in Glen Allen, VA, and named Richmond Federal at the time of the grand opening) to expand their reach and convenience with one affordable decision. The Credit Union Mall allowed Connects FCU and Partners FFCU to expand their operations with actual branch space, a luxury neither credit union had previously enjoyed.

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By Seena Faqiri

Credit union branches are sprouting at a rate of almost 1,000 a year, but generally these are not the branches of small credit unions. With total office expenses rising 11.4% in 2006, even when credit unions outgrow their only branch, they find it very expensive to expand.

In June 2001, three credit unions had a ribbon cutting ceremony — at the same time and at the same location. Call Federal Credit Union ($257M in Richmond, VA) made this possible by opening a new branch in the nation’s first Credit Union Mall. As only credit unions would do, Call FCU, under the leadership of Roger Ball, invited two other smaller credit unions to share

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By Nick Connors

One of the many challenges of running a business of any size is properly allocating and managing corporate purchases. Although company checks and business credit cards have long been the standard form of payment among businesses, many companies are now turning to procurement cards as a fast, efficient, and cost-saving measure.

Practice What You Preach

Teachers Credit Union (IN, $1.7B) has been offering procurement cards, also called “purchasing cards,” to their members’ businesses. Before doing so, however, Teachers tested the product internally. “You have to know what you sell,” says Amy Sink, Chief Financial Officer for Teachers. So employees at Teachers were given procurement cards in an attempt to see how they liked the product and how it could best be used.

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