Tis the Season of Giving……….

One of the things your Board of Directors values highly is the Credit Union’s ability to help our communities in a variety of ways, some not within the normal realm of financial services.

Well, beginning January 1, we will roll out a new program that is a shining example of this commitment. I’m sure you are well aware of our Patronage Reward program (I hope anyway). Each December 31^st NSFCU issues a Patronage Reward to each member; the amount of the reward is pro-rated based on the amount of business the member does with the Credit Union that year. The Rewards can be impressive as we give back $200,000 per year and have now rebated over $2.5 million since we started the program. To make it even better, the Rewards are deposited into special savings accounts earning 10% annual percentage yield.

The new program will allow individual members to donate their Patronage Rewards (if they choose to do so) to one of many fine non-profit organizations in our membership area. The non-profit must have their account at NSFCU and sign up for the program, but we have many of these types of accounts (churches, clubs, you name it) so, chances are, your favorite organization is eligible. An updated list will be kept on our website so you can check that out if you are interested.

Making the donation will be easy. Just call your closest office and we will transfer funds to the non-profit of your choice. You can donate any amount, up to the balance you have in your Patronage Reward account. The best part is, the donations are deposited into the designated organization’s Patronage Reward account, which earns the same 10% APY.

We notified all of our non-profit accounts about this unique opportunity. If your organization has not registered for the program and would like to, just call one of our offices and we’ll get the process started (its easy).

Alright, let’s get started helping out all these organizations that do so much for the area where we live. We’ll even give it a ho, ho, ho when we make the transfer…..

Mark

txt me, k

I will confess that I was a reluctant latecomer to the whole texting thing. The source of my reluctance can be traced back to my annoyance as I witnessed many people so engrossed in their phone that they would ignore unimportant daily duties like watching where they were walking or driving.

Eventually, I decided to give it a try and found it to be very useful – kind of like e-mail on steroids; fast, easy communication right at your fingertips no matter where you are. I still don’t understand it as a form of entertainment like half the world but to each his (her) own. I will say it has changed the world that we live in and I’m sure that will continue as it’s used for many other purposes.

Here is a good example: soon (as in the next month) we will roll out our next enhancement to NSFCU E-Branch – text banking. By simply texting a key word / command you will receive a text response with all the requested information. Because you will authenticate your phone upon signing up for this free service, you will not need to log in before sending any text commands; it literally will be as fast as sending a text message to a friend.

I’m excited about rolling out this feature as it is the next natural evolution in on-line banking. I truly believe that many people will no longer use the on-line banking features on E – Branch as text banking will be just that much faster and more convenient. Most importantly, it will still be as secure as any of our other electronic banking services.

This is another good example of our commitment to providing the latest in electronic banking products combined with old fashioned personal service when you need it.

Stay tuned to www.northshorefcu.org for the official announcement when text banking is available.

Going Green(backs)…………..

Alright, so I’ve been kind of a slacker on the blog posts (O.K. a big slacker but there’s stuff to do). However, I was motivated to comment on our current promotion encouraging members to sign up for E-Statements.

The deal is that all members that are signed up for E-Statements by the end of Member Appreciation Week (July 18^th -22^nd) will be eligible for a Grand Prize drawing of $500 (existing E-Statement users are automatically entered). Our intent is to do the same thing again next year; who knows we may do it every year if it creates interest.

Now, I know $500 is a lot of money to be giving away in an E-Statement promotion but it is clearly worth it. E-Statements are the slickest deal going and not enough members use this cool service. Here is how it works: on the last business day of the month, we run numerous month end jobs, one of which is to create and upload E-Statements to E-Branch, our website (have you picked up on the E-.business yet?). This means that your statement information is available to you about 1 hour after we close our books for the month. This is usually by 7 or so in the evening; paper statements take 4-5 days to arrive in mailboxes. There are several other great features with E-Statements: there is an on-line archive of prior month statements available at the click of a mouse and you can view, print or save the statements to another location if you want. It’s all as simple as logging on the E-Branch and clicking the E-Statements icon.

Now about the money. We want all our members to use E-Statements because it is such an improvement in service over paper statements. There is another reason however – your credit union saves a pile of money when you use E-Statements. The cost of generating and mailing thousands of paper statements every month is way more than you can imagine – we generate E-Statements for free. That’s why we have no problem handing out $500 in a promotion. But forget about the money, sign up for E-Statements because you will love them and you won’t get the paper in the mail anymore.

How to do it? Log on to www.northshorefcu.org and click on the E-Statement icon or tab. You’ll read a brief disclosure, click yes and you are done. Couldn’t be easier and you just might win some greenbacks.

Mark

What’s in a Name?

We’ve changed the name of our Patronage Rebate program to Patronage Reward. Who cares right?

I do, at least a little bit, because it really does describe the program better. We’ve done this for 15 straight years now and with this year’s $200,000, the total amount of Rewards given back to our members has now reached $2.2 million.

It truly is a Reward because the amount is determined by the amount of interest you paid on loans or dividends you earned on deposits in 2010. The more loans and deposits you have at NSFCU, the larger your Reward.

To find the amount of your Reward, go on-line or look at your monthly statement and check for the Patronage Rewards Share account, #99999. The Rewards are listed separately in the history of this account so you can see how much you earned on each of your share or loan accounts (IRA Rewards have to stay in the same IRA account for tax reasons). One last bit of good news: the Patronage Reward account earns 10% annual percentage yield, so leave it in there if you can!

I am pretty proud of this program because few other Credit Unions do this and certainly no banks are doing it. It’s particularly gratifying to be issuing another round of Rewards during these difficult economic times. It’s another sign that your Credit Union is not only surviving these tough times, we’re thriving – thanks to you. I guess that might be our Reward……

Happy New Year,

Mark