aggressive product strategy triples holyoke cu's assets over ten years

AVON, CT, May 15, 2008 - Changing to a community charter isn’t the only reason behind Holyoke Credit Union’s 1,000% growth in membership and 300% increase in assets since 1997. “The foundation of our success is our aggressive introduction of products that consumers need and want,” said $110M Holyoke Credit Union’s President and CEO, Mike Murphy.

Mr. Murphy said that serving the greater Holyoke, Massachusetts community requires a broader product line than most credit unions offer, including business products, mortgage loan servicing, safe deposit services and reverse mortgages. The credit union’s 12,768 members now represent a broad swath of the community – from low income to well-to-do in “a very overbanked market.”

Supporting Holyoke Credit Union’s phenomenal growth in this competitive market has been Connecticut-based technology outsourcer, COCC. “We needed a data processing company that could take us into the future, no holds barred,” said Jay Wolohan, Holyoke Credit Union’s Executive Vice President. “We selected COCC in 1999 and have never looked back.”

Mr. Wolohan reports that COCC had all the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac processing capabilities to engage in full scale loan servicing. “Those products are the cornerstone of our growth,” he said, adding: “COCC gives us the product and processing capabilities of a $30B bank. Prior to COCC, we had to build our products from scratch on an in-house system. Now we select the features we want and implement.”

The credit union has also benefited from the recent sub-prime credit debacle. Mr. Murphy reports that Holyoke Credit Union is doing as much if not more business than it was before the credit crunch. “Our philosophy has always been: ‘Let’s put good loans on the books,’” said Mr. Murphy. “With that mindset and our strong risk management process, we find plenty of good opportunities.”

Other recent product additions, such as overdraft privilege, while raising the credit union’s non-interest income have challenged the institution to adjust to new member behaviors. Mr. Wolohan said COCC’s total view of the member helps to separate those who use OD privilege regularly from those who hardly use it at all. “We have actually adopted a Money Smart program to work the occasional user out of the overdraft privilege product,” he said.

The total view of the member carries through to data mining where Wolohan says he can track members and their accounts any way he wants. “Our staff is excited by the ability to drill down and find data,” he said. “We add to our reports library all the time.”