More notes from the CUNA Marketing and Business Development Council Conference:
Economic Insights – Bill Hampel, SVP/Chief Economist, CUNA did an outstanding job of making economic stats understandable:
• Credit unions have been collateral damage in the financial crisis (but be sure to tell members about share insurance to put them more at ease.)
• Home prices in most of the country have hit bottom, consumer confidence back up to 50% (was 20% at one time).
• 2nd quarter of year is when jobs will start coming back, but likely 4th quarter before consumer confidence is back.
• People will be wanting to pay down debt in future.
• Spread is good between loans and savings right now. Should be September before Fed changes rate.
• Low growth economy; good time for “poaching” members.
• Look for 4% loan growth in 2010 and 6% in 2011.
• Rising delinquencies do not necessarily mean major modifications are needed. At 1.8% delinquency rate for CUs (compared to 5.37% for banks).
• Net loan write-offs have gone from .5% to 1.2% this year, forecasting .8% in 2011.
• Credit card charge offs @ 4.29% (compared to 10% for banks).
• Savings growing 8% this year, 6% next.
• Net worth is more important than net income.
• Net income to average assets: 2008- 31 basis points, 2009- 15 basis points, 2010 estimated at 40 basis points.
• It’s OK to let capital ratio fall — Net capital to assets: 6.5% in 80s, 11% in 90s, should be 9.6% this year (as a reference, 6% is when the auditors show up, 7% is considered well-capitalized).
The big credit card issuers are handing credit unions a golden opportunity on little plastic platters. They’re furiously raising rates and fees and changing rules in a desperate attempt to maximize profits before the CARD act takes effect in February. Naturally, it’s all just in time for the holidays.
article proclaimed: 
Working in a soup kitchen each Friday during lunch became one of those “do good” credit union community service projects that stuck (well, for a while). Each Friday I’d drive into the city, feed the parking meter, and greet the Andersons who were often dumpster diving for treasures on my way in. I’d help take cans of donated food and turn it into something that only on the rare occasion didn’t taste like Green Bean Casserole.
If you were a small soft drink company, you wouldn’t be trying to convince people to drink soft drinks when they were thirsty. That’s the job of the market leader. That’s Coke and Pepsi’s job. What you would be trying to do is to connect with the consumer in a way that when they walk up to the cooler, they end up buying your soft drink instead. You would be trying to steal some of Coke and Pepsi’s market share.
So a squirrel was gathering nuts when he happened upon a distracting piece of aluminum foil…
I once considered myself an alchemist of consumer behavior. Take one vat of direct mail, a dash of media advertising, combine web graphics, lobby displays, a great rate with a snappy tagline and…voila! There was the secret sauce for just about every membership, loan and deposit campaign I’ve whipped together in my credit union career.
The phrase “mental recession” became politically charged last year, but it’s actually still a valid concept. Economic kerfluffles are affecting everyone, but I think we can agree that CUs are basically healthy and lending.
I noticed a very interesting 
In 
How long has it been since you opened your credit union account, applied for a credit card, or gotten an auto loan? Did you have writer’s cramp before it was all over?
Debt Hell -Â Â Your cash is being used to pay the minimum on your card balances so you don’t have the cash to pay for the stuff you want. Solution? Put it on your credit card.
According to the good folks over at 
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