Trash talking has always been big part of physical competition,but a good-natured smack talk match recently brought tremendousloan growth to two credit unions.

The contest between the $83 million, 7,000-member South Bay Credit Union of Redondo Beach, Calif., and the $35million, 7,800-member United Advantage Northwest FCU of Portland,Ore., ended with a win and a trophy for South Bay

The CU Smack Down rivalry was the creation of South Bay CEOJennifer Oliver. She suggested the competition at the CU*NorthWest Annual Leadership Conference where credit unionleaders who use CU*BASE for their core processing solutioncome to learn about new solutions and collaborate on newideas.

South Bay had done a similar competition internally dividing thestaff and pitting the teams against each other.

After a tight battle with multiple lead changes and good-naturedsmack talk, South Bay Credit Union accepted the trophy andcongratulated United Advantage Northwest FCU on a good fight.

“The smack talk had us laughing together, something wehaven't been able to do since the recession,” said Evie Rasmussen,CEO of the Oregon credit union. “Seeing the numbers and incomeincrease was a huge bonus. Going into September UA was ahead and werelished in our success only to fall behind since we were startingto exceed our liquidity threshold – darn it! But know the regulatorwas coming in late September we couldn't afford to push thingsdramatically. So we fell behind with a grin on our faces.”

CU*NorthWest, a credit union-owned CUSO located in Liberty Lake,Wash., acted as referee and posted the weekly total in net consumerloan growth and the smack talk between the two to itswebsite, www.cunorthwest.com. Final numbers: SouthBay, 247 loans for $1,266,239, and United Advantage, 141 loans for$896,032. The competition began July 1 and ended Sept.30.

Throughout the match, United Advantage developed a new greenloan product, staged hot-call nights with a scratch lottery ticketfor each loan, and incented staff and members with prizes includinga chartered deep sea fishing adventure.

A local graphic designer helped them with a campaign includingsocial media, posters, T-shirts and mailers.

In Southern California the South Bay staff was bringing some laserfocus to the competition. In the previous quarter, the creditunion had divided their staff in a loan competition that yieldedalmost $3 million in loans.

“This time the whole staff rallied together to beat UnitedAdvantage,” said Oliver. “The smack talk was the most fun of all.We used all the tools the system has to offer and worked it.”