Expanding Community Impact: Credit Union Strategies for Business Growth

Building a strategy to grow your credit union could be as easy as looking at your current membership for inspiration. A BAI study shows, on average, 21% of a bank’s consumer customers are small business owners. The members walking into your branches, whether on foot or digitally strolling through your e-lobby, are the same folks in the community that need your business services.

Small businesses generally turn to their personal financial institution for deposit services, so marketing specifically to this group is crucial for your credit union! Offering deposit (and loan services) to businesses is a rock solid approach to instantly expand your credit union’s reach in the community and your relationship with current credit union members who may have businesses, big and small!

You need to make sure-

• You’re easy to find.
• Your processes are easy.
• And the products/services are appropriate for the market.

As we know, every business needs a place to deposit, but not every business will need a loan. Those that do aren’t necessarily coming to you straight away like they are for deposit services. To capture the business loan side of things, you must, at a minimum, offer-

• Business credit cards
• Business-use vehicle loans
• Business equipment loans
• Business lines of credit and, unsecured working capital term loans

CU Business Group, our CUSO partner specializing in Business Services for credit unions can help you build or augment your program. And, if you’ve got the deposit side down and are looking to buff up your commercial lending knowledge, do so at the CU Business Group Business Lending Bootcamp, September 27-28, in Wichita, KS, at the Millennium Corporate Credit Union office. Learn the keys to commercial lending success from experienced commercial banking credit union experts.

Learn more and register HERE.