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Could New Business Be Slipping Through Your Fingers?

Generating new loans involves reaching out and gathering loan applications, but could you also improve the number of funded loans within the applications you already receive? Consider the following example:

Analyzing data and looking at it from different perspectives can often reveal new and actionable information. Of the many observations you may make, consider the following:

  • This credit union is funding less than 4 out of every 10 loans. While the number of funded applications is up, the percent of applications funded has decreased each year. Could the credit union be more effective? What would need to change to improve that ratio?
  • Of the applications the credit union has approved, about 65% were funded in the most recent year (and the percentage has dropped year-over-year). Isn’t this a truly lost opportunity? A member wants a loan from the credit union, the credit union wants to do the loan, and yet the loan is never funded. Why?

Often, credit unions can gather this information about the current process quickly. Once prepared, analysis should first focus on data integrity. We have found that it can be important to be wary of approval and funding ratios that appear very high, and may often indicate steps in the process in which data is incomplete and not counting all applications.

Working with our clients, we have seen that a variety of opportunities may exist to improve the effectiveness of the loan process. The value comes in remaining curious about how the results might be improved, agreeing on desired results, and continuing to ask why the results aren’t at desired levels. The answers may lead to changes that serve your members better.

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c. notes – Considering Derivatives?

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Credit unions purchase derivatives for interest rate risk (IRR) protection. As we consider the value that can be obtained from derivatives, it also makes sense to ask how that protection may change over time and if there are circumstances that might make the protection not as beneficial.

Many of our clients are using or considering derivatives as a tool for mitigating interest rate risk. While c. myers does not sell derivatives, we regularly model their impact on our clients’ financial structures to show the risk and reward trade-offs. As we model and discuss these with our clients, we’ve made some observations and identified some questions that help bring a greater understanding to what a credit union might expect. We believe that introducing additional tools to help credit unions address interest rate risk is a very good thing and, as with any new tool, it’s important to understand how it can be used and what risk and reward trade-offs it offers.

To continue reading, please visit the article here.

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COMPARISON OF INTEREST RATE RISK METHODOLOGIES

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Interest rate risk was originally viewed as a process that should be done in a back room, resulting in volumes of information that was stored on a shelf to be available when examiners walked in. However, the complexity of the world has changed over time and so must the use of tools to help evaluate the trade-offs of decisions being faced. Institutions need to ensure they are getting answers to the right business questions in order to create a solid foundation that links strategy and desired financial performance. While there are many aspects to creating strong and sustainable financial performance, this article focuses on the abilities of the primary interest rate risk (IRR) methodologies to support decision-making.

This article was originally published as a Financial Flash by the CUNA CFO Council. The full article (Comparison of Interest Rate Risk Methodologies) can be found here.

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Draft Response to RBC 2.0

As promised in last week’s blog post, our draft response to RBC 2.0 can be found here.

Our main objective in writing this response is to convince NCUA that it would be dangerous for the industry, regardless of the chosen methodology, to add an interest rate risk (IRR) component to the proposed rule. IRR is a highly-complex risk with many interdependent components.

We welcome any questions you may have regarding our response.