How to support the financial wellness of your members

In this era of uncertainty, 77% of Americans recently reported feeling anxious about their financial situation. Many members rely on their credit union as trusted advisors; proactively build on that relationship to identify gaps in their financial wellness and offer them actionable steps for gaining firmer footing.

Credit unions should leverage data insights and targeted communications to become true partners in improving member financial wellness, which creates a virtuous cycle of improved member satisfaction, retention and ultimately increased product revenue opportunities as well.

Here are some ways to help members improve their financial wellness that can also deepen their relationship with the credit union and lead to better retention and additional revenue opportunities.

Financial Tools to Elevate the Member Experience

Many members aren’t sure where to begin when it comes to getting in tune with their finances. The first step to reaching optimal financial wellness is empowering them with the information they need. Consider deploying readily accessible, easy-to-understand dashboards to members—and explain the importance of regularly reviewing tools such as:

• Centralized account aggregation: Enable members to aggregate all of their external accounts within your digital banking app. This provides users with a comprehensive view of their financial picture while giving you insight into alternative banking relationships to better position yourself as their primary financial institution.
• Changes in credit score: The member’s credit score is a big piece within any financial wellness check. This information is viewed to determine approvals and terms, and it’s necessary for members to understand those details and ensure it is accurate. Dramatic changes in this number may be an indication of stolen identity. By having access to the surface credit score and receiving real-time updates when it changes, members can stay on top of this important number.
• Customizable savings goals: Whether it’s saving for a trip or a new car, each member will have different goals. By allowing members to identify specific goals and track their progress, they can increase control over their personal finances, and for most, this control increases satisfaction.
• Detailed transaction history: From spotting fraudulent charges to evaluating recurring charges for potential spending changes, members benefit by becoming familiar with their transaction data. Showcase a clear view of the member’s spending habits so they can act on the information in ways that improves their financial wellness. 

Proactiveness and Personalization Through Data

Casting a broad net and hoping to reach as many members as possible isn’t always an effective way to communicate, build trusted relationships, and get them to engage.

Personalization can be possible with the right analytic solutions and tools, and transaction data is the ultimate fuel to feed these tools to create actionable insights. Once credit unions receive insights that contextualize the member’s financial behavior, they can leverage additional opportunities to help them meet current and future goals. What does this approach look like?

• Precise automated messaging and personalized communications: Once members have inputted their goals and started tracking their financial wellness, credit unions can add more value. Through data analytics of the member’s behavior, credit unions have a unique viewpoint to tailor communications for each specific member and suggest products that will help improve their financial health.
• Use segmented member lists across all channels: Meet members where they are at – on your website, on the open internet, opening emails or mailers from you, at the teller and more. Through targeted audience lists based on member behaviors you can serve up important, engaging, relevant content and offers to each individual audience.
• Learn and adjust: Is the message not landing? Are members not showing interest in your current product offerings? High quality reporting tools should be utilized to give you a clear picture of the full cycle of each campaign, including attribution and ROI. And, once they do adopt a new product or service based on this targeted campaign strategy, make sure they’re quickly and automatically removed from receiving further messaging about the same topic.

Data analytics helps do much more than surface opportunities for targeted content and offers. Insights derived from transaction data empowers credit unions to provide the coaching and tips members need to improve their financial well-being. Plus, the data collected may provide an opportunity to go beyond individual member behavior and provide a 360-view of the entire ecosystem’s financial health. These are valuable insights that deliver trends for credit unions to build future business strategies.

Deploying tools that can anticipate future needs and educate members is important in any financial wellness education. Take Gulf Coast Educators Federal Credit Union (GCEFCU) as an example. They were able to tailor their data and focus on financial wellness for user education.

“Our goal is to be more than just a financial institution for our members; we want to be the first place they turn to when they need financial advice.… To build that trust by educating our members and giving them offers that are beneficial and pertinent to them,” said Caylee Smith, Marketing Director at GCEFCU.