The Propellant That Pushed Guardian CU Forward

Posted by AnnaPeña on February 19, 2013

Many credit unions leaders know – either in their gut or in their strategic vision – that the Hispanic community will play a key role in the growth of their cooperative. Yet, they are challenged to get a true, focused and action-oriented initiative off the ground. Often this is because they aren’t confident they understand where they are at on the continuum of service to this crucial consumer segment.

That was exactly the trouble facing Guardian Credit Union, based in Milwaukee. The leadership understood how important increasing its Hispanic membership would become in the credit union’s near future, yet it needed a spark to ignite the passion needed from staff.

Enter the Hispanic Membership Analysis (HMA). Completed for Guardian CU by Coopera staff, the HMA allowed Guardian leadership to discover pertinent information about its members. The results of the analysis ultimately led to the development of Guardian’s Hispanic growth strategies to increase membership, revenue and loan volume.

“I believe that the HMA was the propellant that I needed to push this initiative forward,” said Christopher Plautz, Guardian CU’s VP of Strategic Research and Development. “It allowed my board to really engage in the details, to, in a concrete way, visualize the audience, the needs for this population and the opportunity for our credit union.”

Each HMA provides a picture of a credit union’s total membership, establishing a baseline of the Hispanics being served and their impact to the cooperative’s bottom line. It shows:

• Percentage of Hispanic members (English and Spanish-preferring), market share and growth over time
• Membership profile characteristics including: language preference, age and tenure
• Financial usage indicators, including services per member, average deposits, average loan volumes, delinquency rates and checking & lending penetration

The HMA could be just the thing your credit union needs to transform gut instinct into action. Get in touch if we can tell you more.

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