Fast Track Member Rewards
Letter of Explanation
On July 1, 2004, Memphis Area Teachers’
Credit Union implemented the new Fast Track Member Rewards
program for all of our members. The program is designed to
reward the members who are responsible for making the credit
union successful – those members who utilize the services of
the credit union. It takes both members who have funds to
deposit and members who have a need to borrow for MATCU to
be successful.
Let me explain the reason this program
was implemented.
First, the credit union is a cooperative, which means that
the individuals who participate in the organization should
benefit from the collective good. In our present position,
many of our members who DO participate in a positive manner
such as paying interest on loans and providing deposit
balances for loaning and investing are actually paying for
those members who only take the benefits and don't
contribute to the overall good of the organization. This
program rewards those members who contribute to the overall
good of the organization by bringing us their business, but
also requires those other members who choose not to or are
unable to contribute in terms of bringing us their business
to contribute by way of a fee. This only seems fair from my
perspective.
Secondly, the program is liberally allowing members to be householded which provides for all accounts in one household
(defined as those at the same address) to be combined for
analysis purposes in determining whether there should or
should not be a fee. This feature is expressly designed to
protect related parties in the same household from receiving
multiple charges when they could have avoided a fee if
viewed on a collective basis. Most other financial
institutions don't do that on personal accounts. They
require the accounts to stand on their own when it comes to
a charge.
Thirdly, the fee income from this program is important to
the credit union especially this year from a bottom-line
business perspective in making MATCU successful. With loan
rates and margins at the lowest point in over fifty years,
we must find alternative sources of revenue to continue to
generate a surplus and provide the ability to grow in terms
of membership and services as well as retain and attract
high quality employees. It doesn't mean we are trying to be
greedy or punitive; it only means we see the real world
perspective of our business and that requires us to be
realistic in charging fees when they are warranted.
Is this a change in perspective for MATCU? Yes. Is it
different from many other credit unions around the country?
No. It’s what a cooperative is all about! We expect this
program to allow MATCU to fulfill our fiduciary
responsibility to all of our members by rewarding those
members whose loyalty to the credit union has been
unwavering in these forty-seven years of operation.
Sincerely,
Ray Algee
President
