Credit Union

Jez

Can anyone tell me about their experience in using Credit Unions at their workplace? Do employees consider this to be a valuable benefit?

Thanks in advance.

Tricia

I was with one company who used a credit union. It was a total nightmare! The credit union allowed employees to have all sorts of benefits such as Christmas Club, Vacation Club, cancer insurance, savings, checking and so on. The only thing was, the employee told the credit union how much he/she wanted in each account. We would make one deduction into a savings acct and then the c.u. would distribute the money from the savings into the other accts. It would have worked fine except the employee always wanted to come to us for changes, such as dropping one of the extra accts, etc.

I was member of this particular c.u. also and everytime I called them for whatever reason, I always got an automated system and could rarely get to an operator.

On the flip side, I am a member of our state's credit union and it is absolutely wonderful! It is very different from the one we were involved with.

I would suggest doing quite a bit of research before going with one. It is best when you have more than one to pick from. Good luck and I hope it works out for you.

Terry

I have found the value of a credit union can really depend on the type of workforce you have. Highly paid exempt employees tend to have their financial "ducks in a row" where your laborers and mid-level employees would find assistance with checking accounts, loans, and savings all through a payroll deduction very convenient. The hard part can be the "marketing" of the benefit and creating awareness of the benefit and value to the employee.

Rockie

Credit Unions usually offer comparable benefits at lower costs to employee, i.e., checking accounts with low or "no fees", lower interest credit cards, lower interest loans, etc. It is absolutely correct that the lower income employees would use more as higher compensated employees would go for more "upscale" benefits like financial planning, brokerage services, etc. that a lot of credit unions don't get into. It is a good benefit for a lot of employees.