Budgeting's Not a Chips and Salsa Party

In a commentary article posted on Credit Union Management, our CEO, Richard Gallagher discusses how budgeting’s not a chips and salsa party. At times can be mundane, but it is necessary for your credit union.

The Lifeblood

Budget allocation for credit unions should ultimately be about growth and stability, but always with respect to net revenue. Viewing that as the heartbeat keeps allocation honest. Without strong net revenue, there will be no asset growth. This will affect things like operating expenses and credit losses. Your credit union will have to either lighten the load or encourage asset growth to keep net revenue healthy. Of course, the latter is preferred. 

One of the greatest assets of mobile banking is 24/7 access. Members can check loan balances at any time, just as There are a few things you can do right now to see whether your budget is in line with current net revenue. First, go over each line item and compare it to past years’ budgets. Are there any blatant discrepancies? If so, look into them and find the cause. Chances are you will find one of two things: Either the expenditure in question cost more than anticipated or it did not produce as expected. Any item that is a cost drain or does not address productivity will have a negative impact on net revenue.

Once you find those items, take time to go through them and determine the underlying issues. Correcting them mid-year during allocation planning will keep net revenue strong and healthy. 

Richard Gallagher

To read more about how your credit union can successfully allocate your budget go check out the CU Management article and then check out our lending documents for your credit union.

_{(note: this is an older blog entry and has been edited since originally posted.)}

The Equifax Breach & Your Credit Union

In a commentary article posted on American Banker (formerly the CU Journal), our CEO, Richard Gallagher discusses how important cybersecurity is for credit unions or anyone in the financial industry. Specifically, he looked at the Equifax breach and your credit union as far as how it can be affected by this breach and similar exploits.

The world of identity theft shifted a bit on Sept. 7, when news broke that hackers had infiltrated the Equifax consumer database. It’s estimated that somewhere around 143 million consumers were affected. This means vital information like names, dates of birth, social security numbers, and credit card information could potentially be up for grabs. And while it’s sobering to think that all of this data could be sold to the highest bidder, the response by Equifax seemed to further complicate the matter.

The website, www.equifaxsecurity2017.com, was set up by the credit bureau to assist consumers with ascertaining whether or not their information had been compromised. However, the official Equifax corporate Twitter account redirected consumers to a fake phishing site for a while before the tweets were noticed and removed. Once the mistake was realized by Equifax, the phishing site was taken down. It was a step by an engineer to bring perspective to the issue of just how dangerous and unnerving the security breach is.

Richard Gallagher

To read more about cybersecurity and your credit union go check out the American Banker article and then check out our compliant lending documents for your credit union.

_{(note: this is an older blog entry and has been edited since originally posted.)}