Credit unions offer many benefits to their users, but attracting new clients can be difficult without the massive marketing budgets that for-profit banks have. While credit unions are nonprofit, they still need to increase their bottom line to build out better product offerings, serve more customers, and take better care of their workforce. Luckily, there are a number of ways to do this without spending on ads.

The best credit union growth strategies to attract new customers include improving their services in ways that expand their reach and make them more competitive with modern banks in terms of convenience and efficiency.

We recommend doing this in the following ways:

• Improve data collection and organization
• Collaborate with other credit unions
• Partner with a quality fintech to offer modern solutions

Let’s dive into each of these with some examples of how to achieve them.

Improve Data Collection and Organization

Getting a clearer picture of the customer base is a great way to make better growth-focused changes to a business. Before deciding how to increase growth, credit unions need to figure out their customers’ borrowing habits. This means understanding what products they are most interested in, what times of the year they usually borrow, and other insights that can help dictate what changes will be best for growth.

Several software integrations can assist with this. Many fintechs offer different analytics, from basic key performance indicators (KPIs) like conversion and average ticket size to more in-depth credit information, like when and how customers tend to borrow. While many credit unions already have ways to gather this information, these software solutions organize the information and automate the review process.

This means that instead of manually reviewing every little detail of a consumer’s credit report, credit unions can use software to review it and come back with predictions and descriptions about what financial products are likely to attract that customer and what they are likely to be borrowing for.

Collaborate With Other Credit Unions

Many credit unions expand their reach by collaborating with other credit unions. By helping out other nearby credit unions, business owners can ensure they can compete with the big banks through larger networks, more accessible ATMs, and more locations for customers to go in and get assistance.

There are a few ways that credit unions collaborate, which include:

• Sharebranching
• ATMs that serve multiple local credit unions (like Allpoint ATMs)
• Credit union service organizations (CUSOs)

Sharebranching

Sharebranching is the practice of allowing one credit union’s location to serve customers from another credit union. This is usually done when the two institutions operate in markets near one another but don’t share much of the same territory. By sharing branches, they can ensure that their customers can still access in-person banking services if they move to the next county over or are traveling locally.

Multi-Institution ATMs

These are pretty self-explanatory: By partnering with companies that offer ATM services fee-free to multiple credit unions, these institutions can expand the accessibility of ATM services without spending as much on building out their own ATM infrastructure outside of their current network.

Credit Union Service Organizations (CUSOs)

CUSOs are collaborative organizations usually owned by a group of credit unions. They are companies run by a board nominated by the institutions that own them, and they work to provide important services for customers that patronize any of the credit unions involved. It operates as a pool for both financial assets and leadership, helping credit unions collaborate to ensure they all offer the same high-quality services that they may not have been able to on their own.

Partner With a Quality Fintech Organization

The best and fastest way to improve the reach and conversion of a credit union is to partner with a fintech firm to modernize their finance solutions. A quality fintech software platform can enable a credit union to leverage emerging trends that consumers have come to expect, like:

• Point-of-sale financing through merchant websites
• Instant installment financing
• One-click finance applications
• Omnichannel banking and lending functionality (websites, apps, and self-service portals)
• Instant approvals

Lenders that offer some form of POS financing see an average 20-30% increase in conversion and a 30-50% increase in average ticket size. This makes it uniquely efficient among credit union growth strategies as a way to increase growth substantially with a single, simple partnership. All that credit unions have to do is reach out to the right partner.

Leverage Credit Union Growth Strategies With Skeps

Skeps offers a comprehensive, end-to-end consumer financing platform that helps lenders and merchants connect with convenient and modern financing options. Working with an entire network of established lenders and a wide variety of merchant partners, we go above and beyond instant installment loans. We help lenders offer a few different types of consumer financing through third-party merchants, including:

• Instant installment financing
• Co-branded credit cards
• Consumer loans and leases

If you’re looking to partner with a forward-thinking fintech company that will get your financial products in front of as many consumers as possible, Skeps is the perfect fit.