Box Elder County FCU is a $106 million credit union located in a rural and historically agricultural county in northwestern Utah. In recent years the credit union has performed well above average when measured by some of the most commonly used credit union metrics....
For the last five years, smallish Family Focus Federal Credit Union (Family Focus) in Omaha, Nebraska, has defied the odds. While most credit unions at its asset size, $31 million, have struggled, and many have given up entirely by merging with larger credit unions,...
By Mark H. Smith, Founder Credit unions and like-minded small businesses across the country are the heart and soul of the US economy. While big business focuses on shipping jobs to far-off lands where labor is cheap and taxes are low, small business remain centered on...
By Cynthia R. Walker, CEO At the time of the Great Depression, most home mortgages were short-term. The common term was three to five years, with no amortization, interest-only payments with a balloon at the maturity. Loan-to-value ratios were also below sixty...
By Mark H. Smith, Founder ALM models have come a long way. Over the last three decades they have evolved from simple spreadsheets estimating a gap between the repricing points of assets and liabilities to sophisticated computer-driven software that considers a...
By Mark H. Smith, Founder As we close out 2015 the credit union system will complete its seventh year hobbled by historically low interest rates. The Fed pushed the rates down to these historic lows in the fourth quarter of 2008. Most of us assumed that it would be a...
