Every credit union President/CEO is working through their pandemic plans that they hoped would never become a reality. The global pandemic of course is real and impacting credit unions everywhere. Our credit union , like many others throughout the country, has just moved our operations to drive thru only to reduce the person to person transmissions of the Coronavirus. Services other than transactions will be available by appointment. This operational change was not taken lightly. Emergency management teams of the state and local government have asked businesses to reduce the social space of interactions. Ultimately, the safety of our employees and members were the guiding force in our temporary operational changes.
The lives of credit union members are being negatively impacted more by the financial impacts of this pandemic emergency more than the health considerations. Yes, the health risks are real and people of all ages should take the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control seriously. The domino effect though is that people are losing their income and jobs because of this worldwide situation. Credit unions will be here to help their members with loan assistance efforts that include payment skips, payment reductions, interest rate reductions, and recovery consolidation loans to decrease the monthly expenses.
Fear and panic create more damage than the actual emergency in some situations. The hoarding of toilet paper and essential supplies has been an example of that. Our credit union is limiting the amount of cash back to members on a daily basis to insure that all of our members have access to cash. We have increased the daily purchasing limit on debit cards by an additional $1,000 to provide access to funds. All deposits are insured to at least $250,000 by the National Credit Union Administration. There was a story from another credit union where one of their older members was requesting over $100,000 in cash from their account. That is panic hoarding that is both dangerous for the member and potentially damaging to financial institutions. No financial institution keeps cash on hand that equals the amount of deposits on hand in all accounts. Credit unions are a financial cooperative so money deposited is also used for loans to other members and investments to produce the income needed for operations and payment of dividends.
Common sense and empathy towards others will go a long way in helping all of us to get through this pandemic situation. People helping people was the genesis of credit unions being created in the first place following the Great Depression era. Credit unions are here now for our members and will remain available for recovery efforts throughout this situation and beyond.
