“Partnering and Leadership Successes” Initiative
Introduced by Matz
“
PALS” to Help Credit Unions Share “Best Practices”
Washington DC, February 24, 2003 - - Credit unions will have
a new way to share success stories and learn how others have
dealt with common problems through a new initiative called “Partnering
and Leadership Successes (PALS)” introduced here today
by National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board Member Deborah
Matz at the Credit Union National Association Government Affairs
Conference.
“The purpose of PALS,” said Matz “is to encourage
the sharing of best practices so they can be adopted by other
credit unions. PALS will give credit unions a showcase for their
innovative solutions to real-life problems and answer questions
about how to make proven strategies work for other credit unions
facing similar challenges.”
“This is my contribution to [NCUA] Chairman [Dennis] Dollar’s
Access Across America initiative which seeks to expand credit
union services to neighborhoods and communities that lack access
to low-cost financial services,” Matz explained. “Access
Across America has been so successful in making more people eligible
for credit union membership. PALS will give credit unions the
tools to take the next step and turn potential members into real – saving
and borrowing – members.”
Explaining the opportunities for credit unions that reach out
to new members, Matz noted, “It’s clear to me that
credit unions are spending a great deal of money to develop new
approaches to appeal to a wider field of membership and even
more money to market to different ethnic and socio-economic groups.
Yet, despite all the effort, some credit union officials tell
me there has been very little return.”
According to Matz, some credit unions have developed creative
solutions to problems common to credit unions throughout the
nation. “I realized there should be a way for credit unions
to learn from one another, to share their creativity and their
success stories.” she said.
Matz announced an April 1 PALS workshop in San Francisco to
promote partnerships between credit unions and the Neighborhood
Reinvestment Corporation. Other planned workshops include a July
session on marketing to the Hispanic community and a September
meeting on innovative strategies to reach a credit union’s
entire field of membership. At that session, “Credit unions
will share their successes with mobile and shared branching,
branches in supermarkets and in check cashing outlets and other
novel approaches,” Matz explained.
“Future PALS workshops might focus on alternatives to
predatory lenders, innovative financial literacy programs, or
cost-effective technologies,” added Matz, who invited conference
attendees to contact her if they have a topic they would like
covered at a PALS workshop, or an innovative solution to a problem
others are facing, or if their league would like to host a workshop.
In addition to workshops, Matz hopes that in the future PALS
will be accessible on her Web site which would include links
to the Web sites of credit unions’ successful initiatives. “So,” she
explained, “if a credit union wants to know how to develop
a successful financial literacy program in an elementary school
or an in-house training program for risk-based lending, they
would be just a click away from credit unions that had been there
before. This would make it easy for others to take advantage
of their ingenuity.”
A 23-year public service veteran, Matz is a member of three
credit unions and resides in McLean, Va. with her husband and
two children. Before her appointment to the NCUA Board, Matz
was appointed by President Clinton as Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Administration in the Department of Agriculture.
The National Credit Union Administration, governed by a three-member
board appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate,
is the independent federal agency that regulates, charters and
supervises federal credit unions. NCUA, with the backing of the
full faith and credit of the U.S. government, operates and manages
the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, insuring the
deposits of more than 80 million account holders in all federal
credit unions and the overwhelming majority of state-chartered
credit unions.
