Foundation research shows how to increase sense of financial well-being

A new report published by the National Credit Union Foundation (the Foundation) shows that credit unions can measurably increase their employees’ financial well-being through initiatives as simple as a prompting email.

The Foundation’s Start at Home report summarizes a two-year long grant project that explored whether positive saving behaviors—primarily splitting an employee’s direct deposit so a portion goes directly into savings—could be established through basic prompts.

Three credit unions participated in the project: Alabama Credit Union, Credit Human and Educational Employees Credit Union. Researchers from Duke University and the University of Southern California oversaw program design, data collection and final analysis. The project ran from June 2020 to May 2022.

Employees at each credit union were randomly assigned to a control or a treatment group. The median increase for split deposits within the treatment group was 7.5 percent, compared to just 1.65 percent in the control.

 

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