Anatomy of a turnaround
How CUs pushed to the brink by the financial crisis regained their footing.
Even at the lowest point of the Great Recession, most credit unions didn’t lose their focus on lending.
That’s what stands out for Mike Schenk as he looks back on that time. “Credit unions were helping members, and kept lending all the way through,” says Schenk, CUNA’s vice president of economics and statistics.
Despite those efforts, the recovery took longer than economists predicted, and overall consumer borrowing slowed significantly. Credit union loan growth fell to -1.2% by 2010, Schenk notes.
A new CUNA CFO Council white paper—“The Art of the Turnaround: How Credit Unions Fought Their Way Back”—profiles the challenges several credit unions faced at this time. It examines how they revised policies, created new business models, and revamped strategic plans to strengthen their bottom lines and rededicate themselves to meeting members’ needs. Here’s a look at two credit unions featured in the white paper.
Source of the problem
Antioch (Calif.) Community Federal Credit Union saw firsthand the impact declining property values had on its earnings and overall financial health.
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