MADISON, Wis.-CUNA recently introduced a new initiative providing strategies to help credit unions help their bottom lines amidst climbing interest rates. CUNA's Project LEAP: Showcasing Lending Excellence and Performance, with support from CUNA Mutual Group and the American Association of Credit Union Leagues, serves as a link to products and services offered through CUNA and the state leagues concerning anything from overall growth strategies to building membership to creating a sales and service culture. Credit unions' ROA averaged around 95 basis points in 2004, down from 98 basis points the year before. Average ROAs could fall as low as 85 basis points in 2005 and down to 80 in 2006. CUNA makes a number of suggestions for credit unions to mitigate the impact of the declining interest rate margin: *Seek out smaller loans and market toward unsecured debt. *Implement a risk-based lending program for more loans at a higher yield. *Adopt a rate-change model that quickly reacts to Federal Reserve and competitive rate changes. *Create a lending incentive program that rewards staff for making "second" loans to members. *Maximize non-interest revenue opportunities by cross selling. Project LEAP explores these strategies and more, such as socioeconomic and technology trends affecting the demographics of credit unions, and influence the financial needs of members and their service preferences. More information is available through the `Project Leap' link, under `CUNA Initiatives,' on CUNA's Web sits at www.cuna.org or e-mail [email protected].

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to CUTimes.com, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited CUTimes.com content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking credit union news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Shared Accounts podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical coverage of the commercial real estate and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, GlobeSt.com and ThinkAdvisor.com
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.