Another Brilliant Credit Union Blog
Scott Patterson from Callahans contacted me today regarding his new blog called "Reflections from Across the Pond". Scott is on sabbatical and spending his hard earned personal time on conducting research of credit unions and financial institutions in the UK. (Scott - I had to use your new favorite word - Brilliant). He has posted some interesting findings in his blog with the latest one directly related to credit union lending. We have been talking about the One Account (made famous by Virgin Bank in the UK) for that last several months and Scott reports how NatWest uses this product offering. Through my involvement with the Filene Research Institute i3 group I was exposed to one of the i3 groups project on this very concept. They called it the Flex One account and have published their research findings. It is my opinion that the key to this type of product offering taking off among US credit unions is the core processors. Without the core processors embracing the product with technology that makes the product easy to administer it will be difficult for the product to gain the momentum it needs to reach profitability. Rumor has it that Wells Fargo is planning a US launch of this product. Has anyone else heard about other US launches? I believe a credit union in California has rolled it out in a limited fashion.
Scott Patterson from Callahans contacted me today regarding his new blog called "Reflections from Across the Pond". Scott is on sabbatical and spending his hard earned personal time on conducting research of credit unions and financial institutions in the UK. (Scott - I had to use your new favorite word - Brilliant). He has posted some interesting findings in his blog with the latest one directly related to credit union lending. We have been talking about the One Account (made famous by Virgin Bank in the UK) for that last several months and Scott reports how NatWest uses this product offering. Through my involvement with the Filene Research Institute i3 group I was exposed to one of the i3 groups project on this very concept. They called it the Flex One account and have published their research findings. It is my opinion that the key to this type of product offering taking off among US credit unions is the core processors. Without the core processors embracing the product with technology that makes the product easy to administer it will be difficult for the product to gain the momentum it needs to reach profitability. Rumor has it that Wells Fargo is planning a US launch of this product. Has anyone else heard about other US launches? I believe a credit union in California has rolled it out in a limited fashion.
2 Comments:
I'm curious about how the accounting is done on these accounts for GAAP and 5300 purposes. It seems like if you had any quantity of these it could really mess up your yield and COF ratios.
Any ideas?
By Jane Johnson, at 11:07 AM
Jane... Excellent question and I don't know the answer. You can find a business plan on this account from a credit union perspective at the following link: http://www.filene.org/docs/Flex%20One%20-%20Business%20Plan.pdf
This business plan really does not address GAAP or 5300 reporting. This is definitely something that the core processors would need to embrace to effectively allow credit unions to pursue this product.
Thanks for your post.
By Doug True, at 6:35 PM
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