6
News to Know
Low Overhead Boosts Savings Rates at Rutherford Postal
SERVICES
EILEEN M. COURTER
ecourter@cutimes.com
t’s as simple as Business 101.
Cut costs and you can boost
profits.
When the business is a
credit union, profit means putting
money in the pockets of members.
That approach has allowed Rutherford District Postal Employees
Federal Credit Union to reach upper tiers in paying savings rates,
currently 2.52% APY.
That may sound modest, but in
today’s environment it is enough
to land the credit union in the
top three financial institutions on
bankrate.com’s savings interest
it union that doesn’t have a lot of
overhead,” he points out.
What about maintaining those
currently above-average savings
rates?
“We basically return all of our
income to the membership,” he
said. “We keep our net worth above
where NCUA wants us to be, and
every dollar we take in above that
each quarter gets returned to the
members in dividends. Our dividend rate has been coming down
over the last seven, eight, nine years,
but it’s still well above market rates.”
We keep our net worth above where NCUA wants
us to be, and every dollar we take in above that
each quarter gets returned to the members in
dividends. Our dividend rate has been coming
down over the last seven, eight, nine years, but it’s
still well above market rates.”
The payroll at
Rutherford Federal
could be described as
limited. Bernier is the
only employee. Office
overhead is also low-
cost, since he operates
out of his home. Drive-
through window and
mortgage department?
Forget it.
ratings. Ask Howard Bernier, the
treasurer, how the credit union ac-complishes that and he has a quick
answer. Keep expenses down.
“We’re a small, $8 million cred-
operates out of his home. Drive-
through window and mortgage de-
partment? Forget it.
Sunmark Crowd Sources for New Website Design
TECHNOLOGY
MARC RAPPORT
mrapport@cutimes.com
unmark Federal Credit
Union turned to the
world of the social In-
ternet to help the New
The $395 million, 45,800-mem-
ber Sunmark in Latham, N. Y., used
crowd sourcing to find the de-
signer for the Albany-area credit
union’s new website.
“Crowd sourcing presented an
opportunity to see
and choose from
many unique de-
signs,” said Lisa
Totaro, Sunmark’s
marketing associ-
ate. “We reviewed
premium designs
at a fraction of what
Totaro
it would traditionally cost with a
major design firm.”
A designer from Guatemala was
chosen from a pool that began
with 32 designs from 15 people
who responded to a call for a home
page design and then was nar-
rowed to four or five finalists who
were asked to create subpages for
the Albany-area credit union.
“It was a relatively inexpensive
way to get a variety of different
thoughts and designs, and the
creative process was really great,”
Totaro said.
The Capital Region credit union
also did a lot of the technical work
itself inside, using the talents of
Steve Keator, its multimedia specialist who brings to the job an IT
programming background as well
as marketing skills.
“Steve oversaw the development of the new website in addi-
Sunmark’s new website was part of an initiative that also included the
addition of remote deposit checking to its mobile banking apps.
tion to handling digital channel
deployment and optimization
and internal productivity tools,”
Totaro said.
The new website was part of
an initiative that also included
the addition of remote deposit
checking to its mobile banking
apps, working with Intuit Finan-
cial Services, and an expansion
of its US Net shared branching
service, adding 19 branches in
the Capital Region through four
other credit unions.
