Keep credit union costs low and member service excellent

by: Nicole Kellner-Swick and Matthew Young

All Credit Unions are faced with the daunting challenge of providing exceptional member service to its members while keeping its costs low. One of the more frustrating and costly circumstances surrounding this concept involve members or third parties requesting documents from the Credit Union. These could be requests from your members to produce lost statements or past, issued checks. Or such requests could come from third parties, typically in the form of a subpoena, to produce a litany of information which can be time consuming and costly to produce, particularly to Credit Unions on the receiving end of such requests. What’s worse, failure to respond appropriately to such document requests can lead to a court imposing sanctions against the Credit Union and possibly even the requesting party’s attorney’s fees.

While Credit Unions are acclimated to the concept of charging members for certain document requests, most don’t consider what cost can be imposed upon third parties requesting documents. Whether the requesting party is a government agency, litigant in a case, or a party to a divorce proceeding, these parties are required in most states to pay for the documents they are requesting, even with a valid subpoena.

In Ohio, reimbursement to Credit Unions for assembling or providing financial records is addressed in the Ohio Administrative Code. In particular, Ohio Administrative Code (OAC) 1301:9-2-12. A Credit Union can charge for search and processing costs, reproduction costs, transportation costs and the detail for the those costs is set forth in subsection (A).

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