We have some solid information and resources to help build your path to financial literacy, stability and growth.

Our guests from BMI Federal Credit Union. Sarah Borland, Vice President of Business & Community Development, and Nancy Sullivan Graf, Financial Education Manager.

We first discuss the differences between credit unions and other financial institutions. There are always pros and cons when we make decisions on where to “park our money”!

Although there have been many problems Americans have faced in their financial situations over the past decade, we can guess that this pandemic has certainly impacted all of our lives dramatically. How are you moving your members to deal with financial changes and to continue to build their net worth?

Are there any particular services or programs that are available to Central Ohioans to help them in planning life’s transitions, such as college education, marriage and home purchases, and of course retirement?

The BMI Financial Education Program has bloomed over the past few years. It concentrates on budgeting, saving, and financing “dreams” such as homes and cars. Nancy gives us an overview of the educational program and how a member can begin.

One other important service is the one-to-one financial coaching available at BMI. Nancy gives us an overview of this service and what it encompasses.

One huge change we have all endured in our financial world is the issue of technology, particularly for older members. We can save money, transfer accounts, pay bills, and much more. Would you give us an overview of the positive changes in technology at BMI and how you assist members with tech issues?

One more issue in online transactions and technology is the security of the systems. Do you have some tips for our listeners on how to do their financial transactions securely and safely, as well as what steps should they take if they think their accounts or information have been stolen?

Retirement is a huge transition for many and we need to be prepared financially. What steps and suggestions can you provide?

We would love to hear from you.

Email us at hello@lookingforwardourway.com.

Find us on Facebook.

Please review our podcast on Google!

And of course everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.

Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle270Media Podcast Consultants.

And by the way, our educational page on our Web site is also open to the public if

you do not have to be behind online banking credentials.

We're putting it out there for anybody who would like like it.

And it's across the different, again, the financial life span.

There's a whole section on preparing to buy a home.

There's a section on preparing for college costs.

Those you know, it's the different topics that our personal finance.

We are looking forward our way. We're in Studio C.

in the five one one studios.

This is Brett and Carol is with me again today.

How are you? I'm good, Brad.

Thank you. How are you today?

I'm good. I'm doing well and really excited with our

program today, providing our audience with solid information and resources to help

build their path to financial stability and growth today.

Let me welcome our wonderful guests from BMI Federal Credit Union.

Sarah Ballan is the vice president of

business and community development for BMI.

And also with us is Nancy Sullivan Graff, who is their financial education manager.

So thank you both for joining us. Thank you.

Happy to be here. Thank you.

Well, Sarah, let's first discuss the

differences between credit unions and other financial institutions there.

It's always pros and cons.

You know, we're here basically with this

episode to make sure you shop, know where you're banking,

and you get to make decisions on where to park your money,

provide the listeners with some advantages of working with credit union.

You're absolutely right.

Well, I think that, you know, it's important that credit unions are viewed as

a sound financial institution, just like banks are.

We're just different in some ways.

And, you know, one way, main way we're

different is that we're not for profit financial cooperatives.

We're still federally insured.

We're insured by entity, the NCUA.

We have member owners.

So we don't have we're they're not called clients.

They're not called customers.

They're called they're called members because they own us.

They own the financial cooperative.

We generally have lower rates on loans.

We have higher yield on savings products because we don't have shareholders to pay.

We have, you know, typically lower fees.

We like to focus a lot on providing personal service at credit unions.

So making sure that we are giving since

they are members, they are getting the personal attention they deserve and that

they are getting that one on one care that's unique to their situation.

But I think the most important thing that

is important, no matter your financial institution, is just to make sure that you

are have that financial stability and that you have that guidance and you feel like

you have that support no matter who you're with, who you're banking with.

You know, banking is a verb.

It's so you you can, you know, choose a credit union.

We believe very strongly in what credit

means can provide in the credit union difference.

But, you know, the important thing is just that you trust your financial institution.

You have an open line of communication with them.

You feel like you can come to them

when you have an issue or or even when you don't just have to have an ability to talk

to them about what is going on in your life and that,

you know, at BMI, we just feel like if you reach out to us and you talk to us, that

that will listen and we will work with you depending on whatever your needs are.

And over the years, the eligibility is

kind of changed a lot, hasn't it, in regards to used to be only available if

you worked at a certain business and such or lived in a certain area.

Now, a lot of changes for eligibility to.

Yeah, credit unions were originally started by the employees of the companies

that they worked out to help their fellow employees and to lend them

money as a as a ability to provide credit to them lines of credit.

So yeah, we were started by Battelle Memorial Institute in nineteen thirty six.

So scientists lending to other scientists and we have we grew

substantially over the years and then around the 2000s

we started growing by merging in other credit unions.

So not just serving Batel employees, we started serving Worthington Industries and

merged their credit union in and then Schottenstein Credit Union.

And so we grew that way, but still focused strictly on employer groups.

So we were serving just the employees of specific organizations.

Then around 2010, we decided, you know, we really we want to grow.

We want to make sure that we're providing

our members as much opportunity as we can to serve them and serve the community.

You know, that's the that's the trouble with being not open to the public and only

serving employees is that no one can walk in off the streets and join the credit

union, you know, and we wanted to be able to serve people who needed us, where they

needed us and in the communities and in those neighborhoods.

So it is something that is unique to credit unions where we are chartered.

So we were originally chartered to serve

specific select employer groups and we changed our charter, which most credit

unions have these days, to a community charter.

So we specifically serve anyone who lives works.

Worships or attends school in Franklin or

the seven surrounding counties here in central Ohio.

And then we also have there's a separate

way that you can join, which is through family.

So if you if you're a member, then anyone that is your immediate family, even if

they do not live in central Ohio, can join the credit union.

So that's the two ways that they you have the eligibility to join BMI specifically,

and every credit union is chartered differently.

So it's important that if you are looking

at joining a credit union, you look at their eligibility requirements and make

sure that they are in line with what where you are and what you're able to do.

There are still credit unions out there

that only serve select employer groups or serve select

areas of business.

There's ones that just serve the transportation industry.

There's, you know, so so there are specific.

But typically, you know, when you do your research and that's what we strongly

encourage you do you do your research and you ask your friends, ask your family

who who they work with, who they trust.

And and that's the best way to get, you

know, put in line with, I think, the right financial institution for you.

You know, credit unions in central Ohio have had a good history here.

My parents both belong to credit unions that were connected with their companies.

But I always thought of credit unions as really being cutting edge.

Back in the 70s,

a good friend of mine who was single lived with her sister, who was single, were

trying to buy a house, and they no bank would lend them money as to single women.

And and these both of them were one was

in a school system, a librarian and a school system.

The other work for the federal government.

Well, she was very upset with the banks,

went to her credit union manager, told him what happened, and he said no problem.

They got their home loan through through the credit union.

And she told him, she goes, I will never deal with those other institutions.

So the credit unions have really been strong here.

And you're basically getting a real bang for your buck, right?

Yeah.

And I think that, you know, going back to what I had said, that, you know, we really

do want to hear your story like we want it.

We don't just put numbers into a computer and it spits out.

Yes, you can have a loan. No, you can't.

We, you know, talk to them about of

course, we have algorithms and we have processes.

And, you know what responsible financial institution wouldn't have that.

But we also want to hear

we want to understand how long they've been employed.

We want to hear about, you know, outside factors.

And we take all of that into consideration when we

work with someone on making sure that they're making the best decision for them.

You know, we don't want to put them in a

high risk situation either and make sure that they're able to pay back a loan.

And but we also want to grant people that

opportunity and make sure that we are listening to them and understanding their

situation and giving them opportunities that may be another financial institution

wouldn't give them based on just a set of numbers.

Right. Very good.

So going forward now with our our new financial situations, given the pandemic,

many Americans are facing really terrible, terrible situations

compared to the great economy we had before the pandemic.

So it's got to have impacted your members

quite a bit. So what is BMI specifically doing to help members during this time?

Well, yes, the the pandemic has brought big changes for our members or our economy

or community, and it's impacted how we interact with

them and how we help them manage their money until so fairly soon after

the government, you know, or they came in and closed restaurants and, you know, we

started changing what you were able to do and things like that.

You know, a lot of I know BMI, a lot of our staff was sent

remote and we were, you know, working from home.

And then our lobbies were shut down and by appointment only.

So you had to call in schedule an appointment to be able to come in.

We just reopened lobbies on November 2nd of this year.

So

so we went in and just decided it was primarily drive thru only.

But the important thing that you have to

do when you make a significant change like that, that it really impacts members.

And if they're used to walking at being able to just walk in and say, I want I you

know, and getting that personal attention and that personal care.

And make that shift is hard and to help

people understand that their money is still safe, we're still wanting to pay.

We're just trying to protect them in other ways now, too.

And so we.

Decided to make a strong focus on educating, on telling them different ways,

pushing them toward helping them get set up for mobile banking.

You know, I know we're scheduling a lot of appointments in the branches, which we

never really had done before to if they had questions on getting set up on mobile

or online banking, helping them understand, because we have a very.

High tech system, our online banking is fairly intuitive, and once you get in it,

it's you know, it's fairly easy to understand and it does really cool things.

And I think that once we were able to get people signed up and walk them through the

look of the of the website in the mobile version, you know, they could see that

they could do a lot of these things themselves and save them the trip out to

the to the credit union, which we'd love to see their faces.

But in this environment, it just wasn't it wasn't safe.

And, you know, we just felt like that was the best way to protect them.

And then obviously still have the drive through is open.

So we would, you know, encourage them to

come through the drive through and we could still provide them that one on one

service just in a social distancing, safe manner.

We would push them.

You know, we've got a lot our onsite call center.

So we have an on site contact center where they are there to help.

You are calling in.

It is right outside Nancy and I's office inside the building.

And they are there to help during business hours and take calls.

They you're not talking to a robot or a machine.

You are not having to go through all these hoops to get to a person.

So we had, you know, people online on

standby ready to help and guide people through when they needed it.

And I think that that was an important way to assist members in transitioning to not

having that same one on one attention in branch that they were used to having.

You know, we have

a program called Call Twenty Four where you could call into an automated system

and get your basic banking needs in a in an automated way.

And so that was a way to help them then after hours.

But of course, then the next day, if you

want to call in and talk to a human, we were there for you.

And so just, you know, making sure we were focusing on

supporting them through knowledge, but also just

protecting them from a safety and health perspective.

I think the the hardest part for all of us

during the shutdown in March was the suddenness of it.

Yes.

And it affected us individually and personally.

But to then pivot large organizations was it's it's incredible what our

companies here in central Ohio have been able to do.

It's amazing. So we went from zero.

People working remotely zero in the credit

union and there's about a hundred employees that work at it, according to

all accounting, business development, marketing, all the people in the

departments in our corporate office, remote

within a matter like I remember that my team coming into my office and saying, OK,

guys, if you're able to, you know, work remotely here, you know, here's some we're

going to try to get these things in place to almost the next day.

They're saying, OK, you guys can't come back here.

Here's a laptop.

There's a laptop here I might ask you for a few months.

It was, like you said, just so sudden how

quickly things escalated from that perspective.

And once, you know, the governor would make announcements that would just

continue to escalate things just in such a short time span.

It really, definitely

caused us to have to pivot to a online,

you know, and Nancy can speak to her having to pivot to from a financial

education perspective, serving all of the the members that she serves, virtually,

you know, the other business development members.

They can't go on site on employer groups anymore.

You know, I used to go on this. They don't have any.

But they were there. Exactly.

So there's no employees to go on site to serve our employees, aren't there?

It it just shifts your focus and it shifts how you can serve people.

But we still I think our organization and

I think organizations across the board were forced to to pivot very quickly and

have done their best to adapt and maybe some better than others.

But I think that overall financial institutions,

thankfully, have been are a necessary service.

And so we have been able to continue to serve members and

customers at banks, you know, without interruption to service.

Wonderful. Yeah.

How do you as a culture, this is a little

bit off of questions, but it's come to mind as a culture inside.

Now you're all remote.

Kept that BMI culture going remotely as I've been difficult.

Well, I mean, we're used to seeing each other's faces every day.

And so, I mean, difficult in the way that

we especially I can speak to my department.

You know, we go into each other's office and talk about things.

And, you know, you just pop over and and I'm used to a lot of traffic in my office,

you know, but they come in and share what happened that day, the call they just had.

And so, yeah, a little.

I mean, I know that I'm probably switching it off topic, too, but it's hard.

It's hard to not see their faces. It's hard.

I love that. I get to see Nancy right now.

It's hard to to not be able to have that interaction without it being forced, you

know, the phone having to set up a meeting or have them text me like, do you have a

minute to talk rather than just swinging by?

And I know that, you know, we probably our

we have employees still on site and our senior team, our CEO, goes in every day.

And he said it's it feels like a Saturday in here every day because it's so quiet.

And he's like, I'm just used to seeing people.

So, I mean, I think that it's it's presented challenges.

I think that, you know, there's always communication challenges

when you don't aren't face to face with people.

But again, you know, just making the best

of it and keeping in mind that this is what the most safe environment is for our

staff and for each other and just adapting and doing the best we can.

Right.

And that's the answer I was looking for, basically, is that, you know,

every company, especially those that aren't a necessary company, trying to do

that the best they can to serve their customers.

So I yes.

And we are all way too impatient with each other.

And I'm hoping that maybe that's backed off a little bit.

I don't know. And hopefully, yes, it's you know, it's

really sad when going to the grocery stores, your social contact.

But I just I think BMI is also we always have our members safety in mind, but

they've also, as an employee, have been very good about as an employee.

They've they've been very assertive that they want us to be safe to.

Right. And really made a fast pivot to getting us

equipped properly to work at home and get procedures in place.

Right.

And and that was that was really nice to make me really happy to work there,

because I felt like they were trying very hard to keep the entire team safe and

prided themselves on how healthy our employees have remained since March.

That's right. Yeah, but a lot of energy into it.

Wonderful.

Well, sir, are there any particular services or programs that

are available to central high ones to help them in that life transition?

You'll.

College education, marriage, home purchases, course, retirement.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think no matter

where you are in life, we've got members across all ages.

So we've got the people that have that are

very proud of their three, four digit account numbers that

the founders found.

So they stood in there and they they're

very proud of the fact that they and I think it's amazing.

I mean, that they that is a sense of pride for them.

How cool that that is something that they call in.

And that is they think that's as cool as as we do, is that they have been with the

credit union so long and that they have have stuck with us and they've got had

their kids join and they have green card accounts.

And I mean that they have just been lifelong BMI.

And we get people that come in all the

time or work at different employer groups that we partner with.

And they're like, yeah, I've been a member

at BMI and my grandfather worked at BATTAL.

I mean, they they tell you.

And isn't that amazing? It is.

It's very cool, that sense of pride.

So but we have lots of members that have joined, you know, from,

you know, being in community now since we've changed about a decade ago.

And and but it's important, I think,

to go through all of life's transitions, as I said, just to make sure you have

sound ethical advice and just to make sure that you have that resource.

And BMI feels like we can be that resource

to provide them that information to to not push a product,

to make sure that when you're speaking to either your credit union, your bank, that

that when you have a need, that they talk to you about that need and that that they

don't talk to you, push you in other directions.

And I think that being cognizant of that

and and listening to what they're saying and understanding that, you know, they.

Have your best interests in mind.

That's that's just such an important thing to recognize and something that I feel

very comfortable with, with how we communicate with our members.

So that's why I think I feel so strongly about how BMI serves its its member base

is because I know that that's our approach.

And, you know, I think just having that resource and then just knowing

that we've been around for as long as we have and that we have that history with

people, I think that we've been able to establish that we will be there through

their college, through there, through marriage, purchasing their home and not

jumping out at a certain point in their life.

Right.

That, OK, I don't need this service anymore as a bulk.

I'm going to move on.

There is never a point right, where you really don't need a financial institution.

You know, unless you go off the grid, you

are going to need sound and ethical financial advice at all times.

So to and to our listeners who may or may not be in central Ohio, these are all

important issues for you to also wrestle with in your community,

whatever institution you use, whether it's a the traditional banking group or really

looking at what else is out there for you there.

There are there are credit unions in every community.

BMI is a federal credit union.

You are backed by federal government just like any other institution.

And so those are the kinds of things that

we want to make sure our audience think about as they're listening.

We're not just talking really about central Ohio.

We're talking about wherever you are at

this moment in need of financial assistance.

So look around in your community and we'll put lots of information on our show notes.

So any resources that either of you have,

we can also add in, along with contact information for BMI.

So wonderful. And there's also I just just to make

note, you mentioned that, you know, we are federally chartered credit union.

There are also not to get in the weeds too

much, but there are also state chartered credit unions.

So a majority of the larger credit unions

actually in most states are state chartered.

So they are

have they are funded through different funds.

They're still insured.

They still provide the same services.

They are just again, there's federally prakriti, according to state chartered.

So, you know, they they just are

kind of how they function is a little different and just how they do things.

But but in general, they all operate the

same way and their service areas can be a little different.

So but again, when it comes down when it

boils down to it, a credit union is a credit union and we're all not for profit

financial cooperative service members and and provide great benefits and services.

So let's clarify that that's going. You do that well.

And I was sort of thinking and and

actually say it out loud, but there are a lot of folks who are jumping on the

Internet and finding little places to put money.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

As long as you've done your homework and

really checked and made sure that when you send money to this online institution that

it actually exists and you're not throwing your money away.

So and in terms of also our

our audience, BMI and the other credit unions have that coöperative

online banking system, the ATM system Nancy always told me about and.

Right.

And so, you know, those are the kinds of things you want to, you know, check into

and make sure that you're on the right track.

So good.

So speaking of right track, let's go ahead and keep moving on here.

BMI has an incredible financial education program and it has actually bloomed over

the past few years, at least my all my time with Nancy and in our

previous lives or my previous life and nonprofit work.

And so I really got to know and understand what you were trying to do.

And it concentrates on budgeting, saving

and financing dreams, which I love that idea.

Homes and cars are financial dreams.

Mine, my home, when the pandemic started,

turned out to be a money pit, doing all the things I had done for years.

I'm home watching and looking at now. So.

So, yeah.

So we want to we do need to continue to to finance those dreams.

But Nancy, let's go ahead and do an overview of the educational program.

And how do you suggest that a member begin and let's go through all those topics.

OK, well, first off, we do have a formal

financial education program at this time, and there's three pieces to it.

But before I jump into that, I want to also mention that as a credit union, we've

always been about financial education for our members before.

Before we had official financial coaches and personal finance workshops and

webinars, our branch managers would go out to our companies and help the employees

learn about credit and those type of things.

We just really formalized it.

I think it was about 2013

and what we've evolved to now, we have three parts of our program.

We do a lot of workshops which are now we made an instant pivot

from workshops to webinars with the pandemic, but on different

personal finance topics, anywhere from budgeting to how to manage your debt, to

understanding how your credit score works.

And let me see what else the home buying,

preparing to buy a home, really their education in the area of personal finance

for our members in now, actually, those are also open to the community.

Now, when we community chartered in 2012, we opened up

that led us to want to open up our educational rights when we formalize them

to our companies, our current members, as well as community.

So a lot of it is open to everyone.

So really helping people through their transitions and really wherever they're at

is where, you know, there's different stages in a financial lifetime.

And so we're trying to support our members that are looking for support

with the education they need to make the decisions that that work for them.

So we do a lot of webinars now that we're using the same platform right now.

And that that was fun.

And, you know, it was it was a little bit of a transition for me because our tagline

at BMI Federal Credit Union is we make banking personal.

So we've always prided ourselves on when

you come into our branches, you see our members face to face.

You're not looking at a screen.

When we do workshops, we're going out to our companies in person.

We're bringing them into our member meeting room.

So we had we're still making it personal.

But now a lot of times it's through a screen when it's our webinars.

So is this the time to tell her, Sarah,

that she's going to have a stand up cardboard stand up and send out to people

that say, well, I'm here, just look at me, I'm a stand up?

Well, and and it's been interesting for

Nancy just to you know, to her credit, you know, back when all of this started,

people still went on a zoom, still had their little picture.

You know, people still made an effort to, like, have their faces on the Zack.

Now everyone puts their screen black and doesn't show.

So she's just to go from speaking to in front of people and have seen reactions,

reading people's faces, seeing that they're understanding the content, writing

screens and just just basically, hey, everybody out there can and did I go,

you know, can you still hear are you taking a nap?

Right.

And I mean, hats off to her for being able to, you know, make that transition,

because what a challenge to be able to speak, you know, in front of people to

have to go to not, you know, being able to have that interaction with people.

And, you know, that I'm sure has been a

challenge because I I do enjoy the feedback that you get from looking at.

Right. Oh, right.

But, you know, we are still coming up with

ways to connect even through this, the computer screen.

And there's different tricks with soon with annotate and chat.

So we like to think we're getting better all the time and we're adding those in to

make sure we are connecting with the folks that are out there listening to us.

It's a different experience for our members, too, right.

So those are a big part of our educational program, our workshops, webinars.

And we also have two other pieces that I think are equally important.

And again, speak to are us trying to meet our members wherever they're at.

We have a very a pretty extensive online learning center on our Web site.

And we curate that content.

We have different kind of learning modules.

There's articles to read.

There's a lot of tools like calculators

for debt pay for calculating how much mortgage you can afford.

And

we and we just added we've added to that

since the pandemic and we're hoping to make it sort of easier to get to.

And we've absolutely seen an increase in the member traffic or the.

And by the way, our educational page on our website is also open to the public.

You do not have to be behind online banking credentials.

We're putting it out there for anybody who would like like it.

And it's across the different, again, the financial life span.

There's a whole section on preparing to buy a home.

There's a section on preparing for college costs.

Those you know, it's the different topics that are personal finance.

And we also have our financial coaching program at the credit union.

And we offer our members and the folks who are employees at our partner

employers, we still work with about 300 employers, I think in central Ohio,

financial coaching.

Now, the pivot with the pandemic was we were doing that before pre pandemic.

We did that. That was all face to face.

And I would actually I do the majority of it.

I'm not the only coach at the credit union.

We actually have several have taken the credential, but I do the majority of it I.

Is going to all the branches again, we want to meet our members where it's that

we want to make it easy to be a member and easy for you to move forward financially.

So I would schedule at all the branches we had in central Ohio.

We have five.

So the pandemic, we immediately shifted to phone.

Scheduling over the phone, and I really didn't was not sure how that was going to

go, but it's actually it's working very well.

Most people were very we're fine with having a phone

conversation and follow a phone call calls.

And so we have a way to schedule phone appointments.

Now, on the and our website used to pick the branch you wanted to meet at.

Now, the only choices schedule a phone call.

When things when things turn around, we hope to get back to face to face.

But a benefit of the phone system is that we can serve more members.

Right, because we're not driving around all day to different branches.

I'm at home.

I can schedule have more people on the schedule.

Right. Well, and things always come up and you

drive to a branch and then the person, for whatever reason, can't be there.

Then you've wasted a good portion of your day happens to and the

the coaching again is it's everything we do is a member driven.

So the member pick, pick, they choose what

they want to work, work on and the dropdown down the

our choice I think that was later.

We have like the most popular topics.

I think that would help if people knew ah like budgeting and saving,

managing debt, write home buying like it's typically a first time homebuyer who

doesn't really understand how mortgages work and.

Right.

You know, we have our mortgage department does a lot of this also.

But if it's someone really just getting

started and they maybe need a little extra time, more education on the different

types of mortgages, how you prepare to get qualified for a mortgage, we we do.

We have a lot of back and forth with the mortgage folks at VMI.

And then a lot of folks are very interested in their credit reports and

credit score review, particularly when we first started.

It was very popular and that was when really the general public was much more

aware of credit because of the apps that were coming out.

And there was more like publicity on your credit score.

So we do quite a bit of folks just want to

come in and maybe do a little deeper dove on their credit report.

Or again, we work with our other departments.

If a member is denied for a loan, we like to say not yet instead of no.

And we provide the member with the opportunity to come through our coaching

program to do a little deeper dove on what is it that we're seeing that is causing a

denial and what steps we can help them if they would like come up with a really

detailed plan on tips to get where they need to be.

Right. Because it could be something really

small, but wouldn't take very much for them to figure out.

There's a lot of credit report review,

credit recovery or even just establishing credit for younger members who maybe they

haven't they don't have any loans that are reporting.

So a lot of education around credit and

improvement in building or establishing credit.

And then we also have a section for student loan repayment education.

Oh, my gosh.

And that evolved again, that wasn't originally on the menu.

But because of our work with so many of our members, like, you know, population in

general have a lot of student loans and there's a lot of and parents having

difficulty because they've signed on on those.

And there's, you know, especially the

federal loans, there's multiple different type of repayment plans now.

And navigating those waters is somewhat overwhelming.

And so we also can support members.

We don't do we don't do it for them.

But I'll have members come in and help

them make that, you know, we'll support them in the coaching office before pre

pandemic, where we make that call to the student loan servicer and help coach them

on what to ask for and how you educate yourself before you make that call on

different type of programs that are available.

We actually have a webinar on it now, too,

because thanks to my own situation with myself, with student loans, some of my

children and their student loans and working with members on student loans, I'm

I have a lot of knowledge about the unfortunately, maybe fortunately.

But that is also one of the topics that we

deal with a lot in our financial coaching program.

So it's a three part program.

It is the coaching one and one, the free webinars or that used to be workshops that

our webinars now and and then the online learning center.

And you can find all of this stuff on our website.

And people have different styles.

Some people just really like a one on one conversation

and other folks like more the let me just work at my own pace.

So so we're trying to kind of meet people wherever they're at.

Let me let me go back in.

And the financial fitness self-assessment,

is that still an opportunity for folks to get started

more just like ask a question and then all of a sudden they realize it's an issue.

You know, I loved that you found that that's available on our Web site.

We developed that piece in-house and we

came up with ten a list of ten things that are connected to financial fitness.

And you can do it yourself.

And we also have a workshop on it, too.

But we wanted to design it if someone just wanted to do it themselves.

And that kind of evolved out of

when we first started the coaching program.

So much focus on credit. Right.

And then you're in this a while.

And I felt that some people that what we were missing was some of the members was

your credit score is not really the best indicator of if you're financially.

Stable or your family?

Oh, exactly, it's absolutely it's

absolutely one it is important, but it's not the most important.

Right. And we were having some situations, you

know, remember driven South America came in wanting to work on credit.

We would be. Absolutely that's what we're going to do.

And then maybe we would be doing a budget

to find some funds to maybe pay off an old debt or something.

And we'd be doing the budget and it would

be revealed that they didn't have car insurance or that they

like other pieces that were missing or and also the members we get to trust the coach

and maybe would reveal like they hadn't felt their taxes in a few years.

Now, none of this is insurmountable, but

that's kind of where the financial fit of self-assessment evolved out of is.

You know, let's make sure we're not missing anything that's important.

And even if we are and it's also

we can't work on 10 things at the same time, but at least now we have this list

and we can help us prioritize what you want to work on.

The member tells us what they want to work

on, but typically a member might come in and say, I want to work on this.

And if we do use the assessment, we say,

is that still what you want the focus to be? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

Well, and you're going to be able to give

them the advice of, well, yes, this is important.

But if we fix this, that's going to be easier to fix.

Exactly. And like in the case with the automobile

insurance, I remember the member that made me add that we have to add that you are

carrying preprint insurance for your stage in life.

That is one of the ten of our on our financial fitness self assessment

that it wasn't really telling him what to

do, but was educating him that by not by lapsing in that area.

There's there's some risk to your financial stability.

Right. You can be sued.

You can lose your assets, those kind of things, and letting him choose.

And like, we are not an insurance agency,

but we do more like member support, like consumer education, where we helped him

compare apples, compare three different policies.

And maybe we want to, like, wait on the

credit stuff and let's let's get you an affordable help.

You find an affordable policy like

consumer education, you know, college, right.

Again, always member driven, but the

assessment has 10 items that we view as important to financial fitness.

And again, it is these are the basics.

It's like that you're able to pay your loans and bills on time,

that you do understand your credit score and how and how to keep it strong or

improve it, that you are properly insured, that you are saving for your future

retirement, that you are saving, that you have an emergency fund.

It's got those type of items on it.

Well, and I think it goes back to

the same issue that we always talked about in job seeking.

You don't know what you don't know.

And this kind of a checklist is going to

give somebody an opportunity to really understand where they are, because if they

didn't learn as a child about saving, how how do you learn?

You have to learn at some point in time.

That's kind of why I was really sort of

pinpointing that and will include that information, too, in the

show notes, because I think it's really for somebody who has not had a good

experience in their financing and or or possibly young, not really at that

point of where they even have a checking account.

This is a great place for them to get that information.

Glad you brought that up, because we're really proud of that piece.

We developed that in-house.

We absolutely scoured the world for assessment tool.

There's other pieces that are out there, but we wanted ours to.

We know our members write the federal credit and we know there were real focused

on our members and we wanted a piece that worked for us.

So we did that. And that's an in-house piece from BMI,

just like the calculators that you mentioned were on the on the system.

A lot of times if you go in and, you know,

you check at Money magazine or one of those others, you can look at all those

kinds of lists or calculators or information.

And then suddenly you're getting bombarded

with just by this and by that and do this and do that this way.

Not only are they getting good sound

financial information, but it's not going anywhere.

You're they're working with you in directly one on one.

And it's people are feeling financial stress.

It's it sort of helps, like, slow it down.

Right, by simplify and let's let's get

things in priority order for you and can help navigate all that.

Right.

When people are stressed financially, there's actually some research on the

brain processes are you don't calculate as well.

It's harder to listen and

it kind of helps settle that down and focus on what the right thing is.

And again, on the farm, it says, what is your.

I think the

question is after the checklist, it says, what is your biggest concern at this time?

And, you know, I'm worried about anything

that they check, you know, three, four or five on.

But anything that's checked a five for sure.

But again, the member I say, what are you losing sleep over?

What do you want to focus on? Right.

Right. And I think that it does lead to, like you

just said, leads to good questions, because sometimes they it makes them

process, you know, am I able to pay my bills every month?

Well, then. That might help you lead down the road.

Well, if they are self-aware enough to

say, you know, the somewhat option, like in the middle,

you know, maybe that's an opportunity for you to sit down with them and look at

their bank statement and see where they're spending their money.

And it helps give some focus to if they if they're aware that maybe there's some

spending habits happening, that they can change, that it can help, you know, and

that's that's because that's what it kind of can boil down to.

It always boils down to saving and write and manage how that's how everything that

trickles back to you, you know, Nancy and I talk about is is saving and how you

spend saving, spending, you know, budgeting, budgeting, budgeting.

Absolutely.

You know, and I think one of the things that's happened in our

world of everything pops here and there

and constantly changing and is that folks don't look at the paperwork, whether it's

hard copy or online, but the details of financing.

So as you said, you know, if they're going

and buying a seven dollar cup of coffee every day, that's an issue.

Yeah.

And you don't even realize it because the habit is there.

You know, and I have mixed feelings about

that because sometimes, particularly the younger members will come in and say, oh,

you're going to tell me I can't get my coffee every day.

And I'm like, absolutely not.

That's a priority for you.

But I just we just need to make sure it's in the budget exactly what we say.

It's in the plan.

That means that you're going to love spending that seven dollars for your

coffee because you're going to be so happy because you've done your spending.

You know, really, we talk about budgets as

planned spending and saving plans because you know that you're going to be able to

pay all your bills, your savings, have an emergency fund.

You're participating in your right work, and you go spend that money and have fun

because, you know, you've met the your plan.

Right. But and also it's there is the coaching

program being like embedded in the credit union is

really a special feature about it, because I think we save a lot of time because, as

Sarah said, your transaction history can reflect your priorities.

That's kind of a blunt way of saying that.

And what a lot of times people come into

the coaching program because they're their priorities have changed and they're trying

to get their spending and they're saving to make that shift to their new

priorities, like they want to go into their marriage debt free.

A baby's on the way.

They're thinking about maybe

being able to go part time or back a little bit out of the formal workforce.

So their priorities have changed and they're trying to adjust their spending

and saving habits to to meet their priorities.

We do quite a bit of that from like the big picture.

But having like like if a member is a

debit card user, has their checking account with us.

And also we also have a Visa credit card.

We've got all your toys, if that's what you're mostly right.

We can I have had members.

I say, well, let's take a look.

What do you think you're spending on restaurants?

And we have online budgeting tool called

my finance tool that's free for our members.

And this particular young lady was quite savvy and fast on the keyboard.

So we were able to put in and it pulls all your transactions out.

And I go, what do you think you spent in the last month?

And she goes, Well, she guessed.

And then we pulled them out and we pulled

out with my finance tool, indicated her Visa and her Visa debit card had use.

And it was like three times. Oh, wow.

It was very eye opening. That's not that doesn't always happen.

And the pandemic has helped many members really cut back on their eating.

I mean, there's a silver lining, I think, in this.

So I don't know, though. I spent a lot more at the grocery store.

She just couldn't eat out for a while. Right.

So now that the delivery services are back, we're seeing a lot of that.

But so it's having the coating embedded in

the credit union, I think saves a lot of time, particularly with our full members.

They have their direct deposit with us and perhaps might have an IRA with us or their

visa with us or their car loan or their home.

Like we you know, we were a full service financial institution.

We really can sort of say some time and we don't have to say, go fill out this form

and put all the interest rates on your your your loans.

We can look them up. Right.

Right.

So it's very, very handy in a good way to support our members.

Do you? I'm kind of pivoting here on my question

from doing this. And particularly when you're starting with a new member, are you

finding people who are less finance savvy because they haven't had

that training from their parents or the opportunity to be

better at their finances? Are you finding, I guess, are you finding folks who don't

know what questions to ask because they've never been in this situation?

You know, I guess I would say it's extremely uneven,

like some people might be very really understand how their car loan works.

And it really read up on that, but not it.

Like people are very uneven with their personal finance information.

I, I like I didn't realize how kind of bad it was, so like I would.

Really recommend if you have a high

schooler, make them take personal finance more and more, either requiring it my my

first one got away from me before I realized how important it was.

And of course, what's interesting, and

this is part of why we have a lot of scientific companies to

my oldest was very much all about those AP classes and honors.

And she was in like all these bands and super, super academic type of a kid.

But we so she didn't have room in her schedule.

Right.

Or something like a semester of personal finance.

And I look back, that was a mistake.

So by the time the second and the third

one went, you know, I'm like, I don't force didn't force my kids to do a lot.

But I'm like, you're going to find a semester to take personal finance.

What a luxury to have a whole semester to be learning about compounding interest and

how credit cards work and how the stock market works, where, you know, where else

are you going to get kids going to get a chance to do that.

So many of us didn't have that right and

had parents that didn't talk about that, those type of things.

I think it's more a little bit more open now with the current generations.

But what I find is people are kind of all over the place.

So I'll get the person that comes in that

has no idea even what their interest rate is on their car loan.

They know their monthly payment, but they don't even know how many months they

agreed to with the other members, you know.

So we do a lot of education.

And I also find even some of our older members forget that you can

refinance loans, a lot of education on that.

And this is swinging back to the whole pandemic.

So if you're worried about if you're going

to have an issue with cash flow, we actually did a couple webinars on.

If you've been at our covid-19 webinar, we

called it that you've got to look at your cash flow situation.

And a lot of people don't realize you can

refinance car loans and home loans and you can say you're not stuck in a high

interest or necessarily, of course, you have to be approved.

There's not a loan officer and there could be a cost to it.

There can. And that's always a hidden issue.

Yes, you. Well, not not not at all.

Well, true. Very true.

Yes.

When I see that in the paper this morning, what the two point three interest rate on

15 year loans, I'm like, OK, how much is that going to cost?

But we'll tell you. We'll talk.

We'll tell you. And our consumer loans, we don't charge

application fees, which is something that oh, that's huge in our industry.

But I mean, sometimes folks don't realize,

look, it might be worth the time to see if you can maybe if you're having income lost

from the pandemic, maybe you want to refinance your home or your car, get your

payment lowered, pushed out a little longer just in case.

Actually, I had a colleague in financial coaching at another credit union.

That's what him and his wife did.

They had like 10 years left on their mortgage.

But the wife was concerned that she was going to lose her job.

So they refinanced and they took it out, 30 much lower payment just in case.

Now you can always put extra on the principal.

And if right. You're with an ethical financial

institution, we put the extra payment on the principal.

So those understandings of those options are available.

Again, what's the current problem?

How do we solve the problem?

And we use our financial products and our

financial education to help you get where you're you want to be or even.

And sometimes it's just removing some anxiety, right, to financial situations.

I think people get so anxious, they stop asking questions.

And I'm notorious for the first time I got a home loan.

I talked to that loan officer for six weeks.

I drove that man crazy high. They would essentially to me.

Yeah, there you go.

But the more schools that got talked about.

But I knew I knew what I was walking into,

you know, because it scares you to no end when you walk in and you start signing all

those paperwork and it's just your name and you're like, what am I doing?

You know?

But it I think that's really the message that we're trying to get across today, is

there's so much out there, so many resources.

But you got to ask those questions.

You got to get yourself started.

Right now.

We're very lucky in central Ohio.

We have a lot of very strong credit unions and good, good community banks.

But you do the peace of mind of working

with an institution that, you know, is has your interests at heart.

That's right. Just like the whole credit union.

Right. And that's really important.

All right. We we talked a little bit about the one on

one to one financial coaching available, of course, that's been put on hold.

But we'll come back, of course.

You know, it'll it's going to look different.

Everything's going to look different outside of the pandemic.

But, of course, the one on one to one

financial coach, it's going to be available.

But we know we haven't talked a little bit about the extends right to that one to one

financial is the corporate members and their employees.

What goes on?

You have that special relationship with corporate members.

You also provide I'm not saying anything different to their

members, but at the same time, the corporate members are there for a reason.

Did you go into that a little bit about

what you do with corporate members and their employees?

Well, we call them preferred employees, OK?

And those are companies that we partner with to bring the optional benefit of

joining the credit union to their employees.

And and it's typically we work with H.R.

people, often with the benefits manager in a company that wants to make.

Sound and ethical financial services easy for their employees to access, and by that

I mean like a safe place to save, a fair place to borrow, a freeway to pay in

convenient way to pay your bills and what our employers like and most do you

take advantage of our financial wellness offerings.

We provide like a pre pandemic.

We would go in and do lunch and learns and we would often even let them survey their

employees and we would help them with the survey.

And what do you want to learn about?

And we would be able to provide those results back.

And often it would be home buying.

Sometimes it's debt management.

Every group is kind of different.

And then we could bring that lunch and learn which now our webinars.

I did eight webinars this week for preferrable.

So they're still taking

the companies that were able to pivot and that had a lot of workers at home.

You know, everything. Once things sort of settled down, we again

were about meeting the needs and solving the problem of our business development

team went out and said, hey, we can help if you guys are, you know, once once

people figured out how to use them and the other platforms.

So we are primarily doing Zun.

But I've been on WebEx, I've been on teams.

I've been on, I think about five different

platforms for our webinars and getting very good response to the employees.

So that's how we have made the pivot for

the financial education, support for the employees.

And again, back to that.

And we were well set up for this.

All our stuff has always been online. On our Web site.

You can always

join the credit union, which means opening a savings account, apply for a loan.

We had all that was in place already.

We just made it much more utilized.

Now that that's the safest way is to stay home and do it at home.

Right.

Till we provide the employers with the education as well as it makes the benefit.

It makes the employer, the H.R., the

benefits person it it meets that need for them because, you know, they're still

being looked to by their employees to provide wellness.

Right.

Benefits, you know, that's that was their role in person.

Well, for them to be able to count on us,

to be able to still provide that service and meet that need to provide the

financial education portion of their benefits program,

you know, just making sure, like Nancy said, utilizing our business

development team and making sure that they're going outside on site

virtually to these employer groups and and communicating what we're still able to

provide, especially with Nancy in the financial education teams help.

And Nancy, she does so much beyond just

the workshops and providing those virtual seminars.

They have articles that they write.

They have newsletters that they send out.

They have just little tips that they send

out to these to these employer groups to be able to put

on their intranet or put in their newsletters.

And and those are things that we're

starting to put on our website as well to make available to all of the,

you know, general membership and general population.

But really

helping to utilize the you know, she mentioned all of our online tools.

We have

we have little

modules that we with a partner or partner company that we work with that has.

How many more modules are there?

Oh, there's over thirty, so thirty modules

on different that are just, you know, a couple of minute long clips that they can

watch and learn, just snippets about the each of these topics.

We've got a partner that provides, if you

prefer to read an article on our website, you can go and access articles if you just

prefer to read something and not have like the cartooning module.

So just different ways to learn.

And, you know, we again, like Nancy said,

have just tried to take note of the different ways that

people want to get this information and absorb information and try to work with

not only the public in the community, but also these employer groups to meet that

need and to make sure they're aware of all of the services that we still have

available, and that just because we're in a pandemic right now, we are still here.

And we we don't you know, we can do this virtually.

We can serve their employees and serve our members without having to be in front of

them and making sure they know that, you know, it's not going to be extra work.

We're going to do all the work for you.

So just making sure we're constantly

sending things out and making information available.

I think we also just really had good

timing with the whole wellness movement for companies or corporate

corporations that want our providing wellness programing for their employees.

With a lot of our employees, we were like the last piece of the puzzle.

Now the financial wellness, like we've got the yoga person coming in, the dietitian

coming in and the smoking cessation, whatever your wellness program has a lot

of we actually did very well with the wellness type of.

A person that's looking for financial

analyst, because if you kind of peel back the onion of adults being not well, there

is some research coming out that a lot of times at the core of the stress is

financial stress and financial stress is not focused.

Right.

To come in and say we're going to support your employees wherever they're at and

help them move forward and we can bring in these workshops and we don't.

That's the free benefit to our company.

So we've we're doing OK.

I say we're doing well and we're busy in our financial world.

We produce financial wellness program for

our companies, for our members in the community.

We tend to use more of the language of financial education.

But it's basically, you know, pretty much the same stuff.

Right. So BMI is on duty 24/7, I think.

Right. I know Nancy made the mistake of giving a

lot of her one on one counseling her cell phone number because, oh,

you know, she gets about meeting people

where they're at because you can get a lot done texting.

Oh, yeah, I I'll have members will just text me a real quick question and I'm OK.

I'm OK with that.

And I do know how to I've had to learn how to shut it down.

But but you know, it's we like to you know, we love seeing our members move

forward or you know, it's what we're about.

And you can tell I really like what I do and I like the BMI.

It just is a real good match for how we what we're telling our employers, how we

want to support their people and our members and our employees do.

Well, we we've sort of touched on my next

question here and there through our conversation.

Technology has taken a whole new

level for all of us in our work world and in our private world.

And as you had mentioned earlier, Sarah, you know, folks who never would have

thought of doing online banking are now well within it.

Are there things that we can make sure

that our audience knows that you're doing with the members in that whole issue of

using the technology and being able to save money, transfer accounts, pay bills,

whatever, you know, is is there anything else out there that BMI is doing and those

positive changes in technology to assist members from from the perspective of

they're having trouble technically doing it?

Is there anything else that we haven't covered?

Not that I can think.

I guess my only thing to reiterate would

be if you're feeling frustrated with technology, right?

Call. Yes, contact us like it.

Technology is frustrating.

I don't know about you guys, but I am

daily frustrated with something going on with like I if something doesn't load or

something, I, I get an email that something and I have to I can't find a

customer service number on Bed, Bath and Beyond its website exactly like Zack.

And I just want to find out where my chair is, you know.

So I just but they now I feel like they've

almost buried customer service numbers because they don't want you to call.

They want you to use the robot chat and

they want you to, you know, use those type of features that don't take a person.

And I just I guess

that's what I love at BMI, is that and I know a lot of, like you said, local credit

unions, local banks, you know, they still have that

that person that contact and that they can trust and talk to.

And so I would just, again, encourage people to make sure they have a financial

institution, that they feel like they have a person.

Yes. And that they they have.

And, you know, knowing that we have an on

site contact center and a, you know, actual humans to talk to,

because I think that there have been situations where you're just frustrated

with, you know, that the website, the technology, anything.

And it's in rather than just saying it doesn't work.

Like I'm frustrated, just I know that it

can be challenging to call or and it's an extra step.

But we really want to help people

understand the benefits that that this type of service, that having an online,

you know, ability to do your own banking,

your own financing online, your own budgeting.

I mean, the my finance tool is very cool. It really does.

You can tag things.

You can split tags to reminders and put it.

You get reminders, you get taxed like you are at eighty percent of your budget.

And it does really cool things.

And, you know, I think that you can

utilize those and you can set them up and then just forget about it, like it

automatically does things and tracks things for you.

And, you know, I think it's still

important to go in and look at your your money every day and where your spending is

and what money's coming out and making sure that first.

Security reasons right right now and keeping an eye on your finances,

not just trusting an automated system to do that, but just

feeling comfortable enough to call in and talk to a person and knowing that you can

do that on site as well, you know, that you can just stop in.

And if you want to sit down with somebody

and have them explain it to you, I that's my advice.

Just make sure you you are with a financial institution that you feel like

you can talk to a person and that they can guide you when you feel that frustration

or when you feel like there's a change that has been,

I want to say, forced on you, but encouraged.

Right. Nudge, nudge, nudge.

And you know that that can be. Challenging.

And so just to to make sure you have an open mind and utilize the resources that

are available to you that can help guide you.

And I've had several members that are maybe trying to, like, take a run in

online banking that used to come in, maybe our more mature members.

And I've often told them, you know, get on

your tablet or whatever, what do you have and make sure it's password protected

Internet that you're not at and you're not on public Wi-Fi.

And then pick up your phone and call our

contact center and be talking to our people who are high level member service

people who they're not scripted, they are problem solvers.

And their goal is to solve your problem. And it's there.

I can't under estimate or I don't.

We have a really good team in our call center and they have been very busy with

the pandemic and helping members try online banking or they'll pay.

And they kind of once you get going, it

becomes better and our stuff is getting better all the time and more intuitive.

So and there's not a like that's not to

get, but there's not like a rush to get you off the phone.

Like they don't try to rush to get to the next call.

They encourage and we encourage our

contacts to take their time, explain it to them, work through it.

You don't have to get so many calls in an

hour or, you know, like to actually help the person.

And so, again, just find someone that you

feel like you are comfortable when you call in, that they're taking the time to

solve your problem and not just like check a box that they said something.

I mean, I got you. Yeah, right.

I did have a complaint from a member this

week connected that he had to wait when he called our contact center.

And I was like, wow, we try so hard to not make people wait that long.

Did you have to wait five minutes?

Oh,

no, I don't think we're doing that because and I you know, I just explaining, you

know, lots of folks like you are calling in for support now.

So thank you for your patience.

I actually felt pretty good about that.

But we have a real nice team in there. Right.

So five minutes is probably on the high end of the typical wait.

Yeah.

Really, if you're used to calling in and literally a person answering the phone, we

never used to even have the recording at the beginning.

When you called in, we had a person pick up.

Her name was Sandy. She and my federal court.

You know, how how can I help? I mean, it was that level.

Well, then you grow to a certain point.

You have to act some kind of prompt.

But but, you know, it's it's amazing how quickly they can

they like you said, they're problem solvers and having that resource.

And we got a lot of referrals into the

financial education program from our contact center.

So if a member is asking a lot of

questions about a home buying or they'll say, well, you know, we've got a webinar

coming up, or do you want to put on a great we have systems where they can put

them in or a member maybe is struggling with overdrafting.

They're checking it out a lot.

And our context, I would say maybe we might have some of that could help.

You spent some time with you.

So so it all kind of works together. Wonderful.

Wonderful. Along with the move to online,

there can be, you know, more of an opportunity for someone to take

information that they shouldn't be taking, you know, stolen information and such like

that or but they can happen even writing a check and and such.

Would you talk a little bit about how and first of all, I want to make sure that the

listener understands if they think something's gone and

that surmised that their information's been stolen or their accounts been

compromised, that they do need to call in and tell you, don't be embarrassed, don't

be shy, because it has to be taken care of.

And and I think everything we've talked up to this point is that it makes it sound

that you guys are very welcoming to these kind of calls.

Right. Don't be ashamed.

Don't be afraid.

Can you talk a little bit about maybe some processes or just what would

happen if somebody calls and said, I think this is going on, can you help me?

Well, and we do encourage our members,

even if you're not sure, like maybe you think you lost your credit card.

Right? Not so simple as that.

We're like, if there's any twinge of

doubt, call us because we can shut these things down temporarily.

The technology is so much better now than when I started.

We can shut a card down even temporarily and turn it back to actually our members,

if they have our app, can do it themselves.

We have wonderful.

But however, in the panic of that kind of thing, sometimes you forget about that.

We're like, call us as soon as you can.

I also encourage our members to make sure they have our customer service or our

members service phone number in their phone already.

So if you're getting an email or something

that looks suspicious, you don't don't ever respond to the email call.

The number that you know is ours.

You know, that's another tool.

And the faster you call us, the better,

even if it's something for very small change.

We want to know because we can close those cards down temporarily.

Reissue cards. We're very aggressive about that.

Really, the most important thing for

everyone is just keep an eye on your money.

Keep right on those accounts.

If there's anything you know, gone are the days where you can wait for your statement

to come and review a third, you know, review it.

Then there are some people that still do that.

And actually you're actually protected for pretty good windows of time.

If it's debit card or credit card use,

there's some consumer protections that the law has in there, but it's really about

keeping an eye on things and that we do in a workshop on identity theft.

And we actually have a page on our Web site to add to our identity theft

information center.

That is also it's under the financial

education center where and we built that in response to the panic

of thinking something had been compromised.

What do you do first? And it kind of lays it out for you.

Call here, do this, file this and and help SWAC the members through that.

And actually, when I found out after we got that up was.

Our employees were using it to when

members were coming in, it was a good go to for our employees to make sure they

didn't miss anything supporting the members.

I don't know if that answer your question is no.

It is high on your money.

Anybody that you owe money to, anybody that you're saving your money with, open

those statements, open those emails, keep a good eye on them.

And if you get any twinge of doubt, call in.

And in the panic of the moment, our people

will walk you through what to do to one of the comments that Sarah made

earlier to be careful when you're online and not at home, you know, when you're at

Piñera, that may not be the place to do financial transactions on your laptop.

So, you know, no publicly. No airports.

No airports. Yeah, yeah.

Let's say you slipped up and panicked.

You know, you just got to keep an extra close eye on things.

And even and there is something out there

was sometimes there's fraud with they they'll just charge a little small amount.

So you'll neglect. Oh it's just a few dollars I probably owe.

And then three months later they've confirmed it's a real account.

So we even want you to call us no matter what the amount is, if you're not sure.

Good point there. That's a good point.

But those small dollar tasks. Yeah, right.

To try to see if it will go through and then.

And the other thing for our mature members is to be for every member

really is be really careful about who you're sharing your credentials with.

If you're giving someone your debit card

to use or you're letting someone help you with your online banking.

We really have to have all that stuff on

high alert because you're authorizing use of your accounts.

Right. And that gets really tricky.

But, you know, the solution isn't that hard to change your password, right?

If you don't, you know what I mean? Like, don't panic.

Just change your password if you're worried.

So,

so and very specific.

You know, there's you know, if there's been something on your visa that's

fraudulent, we have a process where you file the

dispute and visa, you know, the majority of the time will make you right.

Again, same with your debit card.

If there was a something not right on your debit card, we make our members whole.

And the overwhelming majority of times the most important thing for the member to

know is don't wait a second, stop immediately and call us.

Right.

And that that way we can limit losses and help you the most.

Well, in the amount of online transactions that we're all doing the purchasing.

And now with what you were recording this before the holidays.

So now with the holidays coming up, you

know, we're all going to be really, really active online.

And how many times do weird things pop up on your websites?

You know, like, oh, that's really cool.

Maybe I should buy one of those for some so-and-so and,

you know, and suddenly your way deep in bad weed.

So you just have to be really careful.

And generally speaking, with online

banking and there's some debate even at the credit line about this, I would prefer

members to use their credit cards online and on their debit cards.

Right. Right.

There's more protections with credit cards.

And if you're debit cards compromised, your checking account gets emptied out.

We'll make it right again, but it can get complicated.

Oh, absolutely.

A bill that's that you have an auto pay hit, send it over draws even more.

It just is much more complicated where if it's a credit card, you've got the power

of the Visa credit card company behind you and you're not out the money yet.

So generally speaking, I think it's much

safer to use a visa or I'm sorry, a credit card online than a debit card.

Right. Right.

Though. So my my last question is for those of us

who are older listeners, either getting ready to retire

in the middle of trying to retire or into retirement.

Any words of advice, any kinds of things that you're helping those members do?

Well, I do have to clarify that financial coaching is not financial planning.

We do not provide investment services or investment advice.

Right.

However, we do have members across the age band.

And when our older members are having these concerns, oftentimes what our

financial education program can support them with is

first off, I can send you some stuff on how to evaluate a financial planner that

guides you on questions to ask if you're looking for one right.

Again, this education.

Secondly, I often will often talk about, well, where are you at in the process?

How we can help you support you with doing your retirement budget.

Like, have you taken the time to figure out what your monthly costs are going to

be and what is going to take to maintain your lifestyle or your new lifestyle?

You're trying and just sitting down and doing a monthly budget like gather your

bills, sit down and see what do you need every month.

Do you know how to find out what Social

Security what your Social Security payment is?

That's again, is this is in the realm of education.

So let's just sit down and more the nuts and bolts.

What does it cost you to live every month?

And some people have a pretty good grip on that.

Others really don't keep good track.

And then the whole going on to Social Security's website.

Now, you can get this calculator to estimate what you're right.

I've seen that be a huge relief to a lot

of members because don't forget, you can do this starting at 62 and then we educate

on, you know, this isn't a Social Security webinar, but the later you wait, the

higher payment will help them figure out if they're eligible.

Right. And what they're going to get.

And that can help relieve them.

And then that's part of your budget, too, and work out those things.

And also a lot of focus on I think sometimes people forget let's not

just it's not just that you have a huge four.

I think it's also what your budget is going to demand.

And let's try to get that house paid off or that car paid off before you go part

right wherever you're at or before you retire.

And people do forget about that.

I had a friend that her kids were telling her, oh, you should lease your next car.

It's awesome to lease. Oh, no, she called me.

So think about leasing.

And I was like, wait a minute.

Didn't you tell me last call that you were thinking about retiring in three years?

So if you buy a car, do you want to pay

off car or close to it off or do you want to lease payments?

Right. I just hadn't really thought that through.

You know, you could you do what's right

for you, but that's kind of what our coaching is.

Let's look at all the options and help you get the goal.

And and it's not always about it's great if you have a huge retirement fund, but

it's it's also really good to make sure you're going into those years with.

Low debt, and that's really not just in retirement, it's really everywhere we want

to get out of debt, particularly if when we're going to exit or back out of the

income producing years, we want to make sure our payments are low or done with.

So that's more along the lines that we can be wonderful with.

But if you need advice on how to invest your 401k that you're going to roll over

into IRAs, that we can't tell you how to invest it.

But I do actually spend time explaining to people how that works.

But what is an IRA as opposed to for those

kind of education is what we do in coaching.

And then I have some really nice pieces from the Consumer Financial Protection

Bureau that we share with members on again, how to pick a financial planner.

I really like this piece to give a lot of these out.

These are from the Consumer Financial

Protection Bureau and the FDIC on money smarts for older adults.

We talked about scams well put.

We will put a link to that. Probably on.

It's probably online.

Well, it is through their website, but.

Right, right, right, right.

I just got a box of 30 of these, so somebody would like that.

We can, you know, send it out to them.

I try to get them OK branches.

OK, if you think about it, Nancy, send me the link and will.

Absolutely. We can add that to our show.

And we have our identity theft action plan.

That's our in-house piece where 10 things

like concrete things you can do to watch out for identity theft.

And one of them is to

have the phone number of all your

financial providers in your phone already, things like that.

And we can give you that and as well as a link to where our webinars are posted in

our online learning center and our financial coaching piece.

Do you know one of the things in this just sort of popped into my head that because I

don't have children, I've really tried to do a lot with my who would be the executor

of my estate in making sure they know all of the stuff that I'm doing, too.

So I think that's an important message for older members of our audience.

Actually, any member of our audience is

that somebody can track your financial situation if you get into a problem.

It's not just having the power of attorney, but making sure whoever has that

power of attorney has what they know, what they you know, we do have those passports.

I still have a box of those we like a

little it's called a passport piece where you can list all your accounts things.

And the reason that it's actually very important, we were just talking about this

because it used to be when you passed away, the person who took care of your

estate would just get your mail for a couple of months.

Right.

And just the credit, the bills would come in.

The statements from your bank accounts would come in.

But now now with most people having it

online, that's it's a little more complicated.

So that is important.

And it doesn't even have to be in a fancy piece.

But that you have that listed somewhere and you've given it to right at first.

But as you were saying, change your password.

You have to let people know you've changed.

That's true.

Let's be very protective of your online credentials.

Exactly.

Super protective of them and absolutely change them frequently.

I know ours that we just had to do these really long ones.

That's the latest, by the way, that it used to be like eight and six characters

that apparently we have learned from our I.T. people.

It's really better to just have a really to have a pass phrase.

I have a phrase. Right.

So we we had that on another podcast, too. Yes.

Yeah. So, you know, what symbols is that of a.

Yes, exactly.

It well in it's own I thought it was

acronyms, but it's not that it's an actual phrase that no one else would speak to

those who would have known you could put spaces in.

Yes.

But we like you know, we want our members to be to reach their financial goals.

And like we like to say, we're going to

support you with making your dreams come true.

And financial services and products are a

part of that, like home loans and things like that.

And

we like to be part of that.

And we want to make sure our members that

are educated in their choices and making wonderful choices for them.

And we're real proud of that at the credit union.

So thank you.

That was a great, great summary of all of those.

Yes. Oh, yeah, exactly.

The words right out of my mouth. Exactly right now.

And as we talked about, we'll have all the

resources and things we're talking about here on the podcast show notes and

actually maybe a couple of call to action some things that Nancy brought up.

We'll ask our listeners if they interested.

I'll get an email in the podcast, show notes and how to get them in contact.

We won't give the phone numbers.

We don't want you to be texting you for this interaction.

But you in order to know what I'm doing.

It's interesting, too, with the pivot to virtual, like I connect well with members

over the phone or the folks that are coming in for the financial coaching.

It's working. And we have Zoom is available.

We're set up where we can use them.

But most people are saying, let's just do the phone call.

But I'm also putting things in the mail

because it is if a member wants this like money smart for older adults.

Do you want the digital version, but I

could send you the book and I will find more mature members kind of prefer to

actually have Zack and other folks do, too.

But I actually I go in about once a week and I have little booklets about how to

save, how to understand your credit kind of as a collector of that information.

Pre pandemic. I got loads of that content and if we do a

workshop on credit, we'll ask the folks if you'd like us to send you this booklet.

We can do that. And, you know, you always get it for you.

And so I actually have my skills.

I go in once a week and I do a little bit of mailing out of content to people, but

it's also another way to be present and support them where they're at.

Maybe they want to read it online.

They want to have it in their hands.

Even younger folks were all tired of being online.

Exactly. Absolutely.

Thank you so much, both of you.

It was good to see you, too.

And thank you so much for being with us today and all of your time and expertize.

Thanks for having us. Thank you.