TESTIMONIALS

LEATHERSTOCKING CREDIT UNION ASSETS: $42 MILLION
As CEO of CUSAG, John Revilla has been extremely helpful during the last ten years on a variety of levels--from navigating troubled waters during a NCUA audit to reviewing and writing many of our policies. Although we are a small credit union, John has consistently kept us up to speed with the “big guys” organizing our marketing initiatives and guiding the overall direction of Leatherstocking Credit Union. His expertise during both our debit card and credit card conversions proved to be invaluable. John’s accessibility and timeliness is beyond reproach! I highly recommend him for any engagement that you may have--big or small.

Mary T. Clarke, President/CEO
Leatherstocking Credit Union


NORTHERN LIGHTS CREDIT UNION ASSETS: $19 MILLION
As the CEO, it’s important to maximize the value of every dollar spent and to invest in those people and services that either save or make your organization money. The financial industry and marketplace has been in constant change and the fact is if you don’t change, you may be merged out.

We recognized that we did not have all of the expertise to accomplish these strategies in house and could not afford full-time employment of the expertise we needed on a part time basis. So we turned to CUSAG for that expertise nearly a decade ago and have never looked back.

We immediately outsourced our collections and workouts, eliminated the expense of constant training, and excuses from loan officers why they were not getting their loan numbers up. Result: Delinquency dropped, charge-offs dropped, and legal expenditures dropped significantly.

We turned to CUSAG for Strategic Planning nearly a decade ago after having other planners who did not understand the industry and frankly spent more time on mission statements than on tangible strategies to move us forward. We now have a Board that is enthusiastic about attending planning sessions every year, and we compile a comprehensive plan of six to ten strategic items to work on over the next twelve months that have a positive impact on the membership and the organization.
We have worked with CUSAG on a enhancing our Risk Based Lending and marketing over the years, and today we enjoy loan-to-share ratios in the 90% plus range, strong yields, strong portfolio balances, low delinquency and charge-offs, and an outstanding ROA.

A number of years ago we decided to engage the services of CUSAG to sell our credit card portfolio as it was stagnant, and we were concerned what the impact of an economic down-turn would do. They promptly sold our portfolio, which provided the credit union with a significant premium, and they helped us turn around and reinvest the portfolio in the form of RBL loans through their marketing campaigns.

Over the past ten years they have negotiated new ATM/Debit processing contracts for the credit union and each time they have reduced our cost significantly and improved our interchange revenues.

CUSAG is an organization that has accomplished what the NLCU Board has asked of them and gets the job done. They have always exceeded our expectations.

Rita St. Arnauld, CEO, Treasurer, NCCO
Northern Lights Credit Union


FRANKLIN FIRST FEDERAL CREDIT UNION ASSETS: $60 MILLION
“Franklin First had some serious delinquency problems due to lack of available staffing for collections. We contracted with the professionals of CUSAG to take over responsibility for this area in July of 2004. In Dec. of 2003 we had a delinquency of 3.2%. Six months after CUSAG implemented their Collections/Workout strategies, our delinquency was down to 1.72% (Dec. 2004), and I’m happy to report that as of Dec. 2005 we had a delinquency ratio of 0.83%, and as of Sept. 2006, a delinquency ratio of 0.26%. Their knowledge of collections regulations is extensive; knowing they follow the rules lends us peace of mind. Outsourcing this cost center to CUSAG has proven to be a great solution and a valuable resource for our credit union; they truly do become a part of the team.”
Martha Richardson, CEO
Franklin First Federal Credit Union

SEASONS FEDERAL CREDIT UNION ASSETS: $146 MILLION
“Like many credit unions, Seasons handled collections in house. As the economic conditions began to change we found our delinquency on the rise and our staff unable to keep up with the added demand. We explored our options, spoke with some outside vendors and determined that outsourcing made sense. We narrowed the field to a couple of solutions.

After discussing CUSAG’s unique approach with Eric and John, we performed our due-diligence including checking CUSAG’s references and those of the other vendors. The references for the other collection solutions were good but the enthusiasm of CUSAG’s references made them our choice. In our first year of using CUSAG we saw our delinquency fall 69% despite the trying economic times. They truly have become a part of our team and have delivered everything they said they would, and more. If you’re ready to explore the advantages of an outside collection solution, I can’t think of a better team than CUSAG.”
Keith Wiemert, CEO
Seasons Federal Credit Union