Lots of controversy about "the New/New" at SECU. Much has to do with the real and increasingly apparent declines in assets, in member service, in employee morale, and in the reputation for fairness the credit union had earned. Plenty of signs that these drops in quality are not just a matter of opinion or a mere difference in outlook - or culture. These are hard dollar losses across many measures of performance and productivity.
Members are receiving less from their credit union while paying more - often much more.
Easy example is in loan performance. You probably have noticed much mention in the comments about the major Board and senior leadership snafu, resulting from the arbitrary and fiscally irresponsible "centralization" of SECU collections in 2022. This was no accident, it was as Forrest Gump would say...well, we all know what Mr. Gump has to say about this sort of thing!
Previously, the collection of loan accounts was managed at the branch where the loan was made. By utilizing the strong bond between local loan officers and local member borrowers; if problems arose, the local staff had the ability to work with members to find positive solutions. And again yes, unexpected, bad stuff does happen to some very fine members; and yes losses do occur. SECU historically has enjoyed one of the lowest loan loss (charge-offs) ratios among peer credit unions.
At 12/31/2021. SECU's charge-off ratio was .19%, about 2/10s of 1%! Even though the current SECU Board would lead you to believe that SECU borrowers were a bunch of n'er-do-well, non-"A-paper" slackers!
Take a look at the cost of that Board/management "centralization" error to you as a member. When the current regime came into leadership in late 2021 here are the delinquency/loss ratios they inherited from those legacy employees (supposedly also n'er-do-well slackers!):
👍At 12/31/2021
# of Delinquent loans: 12,148
$$$ Delinquent 60+ days: $352,881,000
Total Charge-offs for year: $50,473,000
✔ Results after the "centralization snafu"... losses up by over $45 million - up over 90%!
👎At 12/31/2022
# of Delinquent loans: 25,909
$$$ Delinquent 60+ days: $556,172,000
Total Charge-offs for year: $95,535,000
✔ Hey, but it gets even better! Take a look at Charge-offs for 1st QTR 2023...
👎👎1/01/2023 through 3/31/2023:
Total Charge-offs for just the 1st quarter : $47,582,000 ... almost equal to all of year 2021!
...maybe we should let Forrest run the place? Or at least sit on the Board! (Run Forrest Run!)
The centralization of the credit union was one of the key dominos causing the downfall of SECU
ReplyDeleteBut can Forrest get 500 UNIQUE signatures in 10 calendar days...oh wait, but first he has to apply to run, get turned down by the nominating committee. They make their decision on Friday 8-11 and have one business day to send their form (which all wet signatures must be on) so that means it will be emailed out on Monday 8-14. And must be turned in on August 21. Better hope Lt. Dan doesn't apply to run too and one person signed both petitions...they have to be unique.
ReplyDeleteThis is my exact concern. If this is not a well thought out deliberate attempt it is impossible.
DeleteI mean this almost needs to be run just like a campaign because it has to be that methodical to even have a chance.
You can not wait to see if people nominate themselves. Rather we need to be proactive.
The timeline is too tight. Getting the 500 signatures that fast will require a thought out plan and laser focus on achievement.
And don’t forget…….. it has to be done by multiple people because EVERYONE up for re-election needs to be replaced.
How much more of the members' money will be mishandled before someone says "enough"?
ReplyDeleteNumbers don't lie. Haze and Loan Administration centralized collections and it has been a colossal failure. They thought they were smarter than the branches and their personal relationships with members and their knowledge of their communities - and they screwed that up...big time. And in the process cost the members millions of dollars.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as part of their plan to devalue the branches, remove their responsibilities and their ability to help members, pay less, cut staff, treat members like profit centers, generally make branches second class employees, and centralize the highly compensated "Execs", its been a huge success. Congratulations you Goofs.
#TheMembersDeserveBetter
#TheEmployeesDeserveBetter
#GiveUsOurTiesBack
Even the members miss having local branches handle delinquency…. The communication was 100% better. A whole separate issue is members aren’t answering calls from these phone #’s and area codes, so it’s a waste of EVERY one’s time. And don’t get me started on the morale and turnover happening in the collections staff
ReplyDeleteAnd to think of the hit to credit scores of members due to no communication by collections last year. They are going to pay the price with tiered rates. How timely. But they can arbitrate.
DeleteMore delinquent leadership!
ReplyDeleteJust wait till you hear about the Boards email to the employees. Never thought I’d see an email from the corporate board.
ReplyDelete