ARLINGTON, Va. -- One year into the job, NAFCU Services Corporation President David Frankil revamped the focus of the organization as well as influencing the mindset of its vendors.

"NAFCU Services had been run more like a traditional trade association affinity marketing program in the past, which is not unusual," he said. It offered products and services to add to the trade association's value proposition "but really not too much more sophisticated than that."

"The problem with that approach," Frankil continued, "is it really focuses on the discount that you're offering to your members as a primary value driver. That makes you become a commodity."

So NSC has experienced a shift, he said from products and services to a solutions mindset.

"It's more of a consultative approach," Frankil clarified. "We're not here to sell you x, to sell you y. We're here to help you solve problems, and if we do that, everybody wins."

With that as a backdrop, NSC has established "much more concerted outreach." In addition to bringing on eight new Preferred Partners over the past year, NSC, in coordination with its partners, has added about 15 Webcasts to its Web site (www.nafcu.org/nsc) and done two live Webinars. Another half a dozen Web casts are at the editing stage and four or five more are due to be recorded at the end of the month.

Frankil emphasized that though these are cast from among experts at their partners, they are not marketing pitches. "They're not sales focused. They're focused on a higher level educational message that'll help a credit union understand how they can grow better or operate more efficiently," he said. Many Preferred Partners will also be presenting at NAFCU's Annual Conference in Honolulu this week.

NSC has contracted with Bob London of London, Ink, the "super marketing mind" who headed up MCI's Friends & Family campaign, to work with NSC and its partners on a more customer-centric marketing paradigm. Frankil quipped that the idea is for NSC to become "consumer reports on steroids."

"I want any credit union that is looking for a solution in an area we have a solution provider to think of us first," he stated.

When seeking out new Preferred Partners, Frankil explained, NSC tries to put itself in the credit union's shoes. "I view the mission of the organization as, first and foremost, understanding the challenges being faced by credit unions every day, and to be more specific about it, where's the next round of profitable growth coming from? How can I increase retention rates for members? How can I continue to attract new members?"

Then the challenge becomes identifying top quality vendors to provide the solutions to fit NAFCU members' needs and connecting the right credit unions with the right solution. "And if I do that job right, it's a win-win-win solution: I've helped a credit union grow and be more productive, I've helped the preferred partner grow as well in the industry and I've helped NAFCU and NAFCU Services grow. That's a self-reinforcing loop," Frankil said.

While a handful of partners have dropped off because they were not working out, eight of NSC's now 27 partners have been added under Frankil's first year, including:

-Alliance Financial for credit card program assessment and advisory services, which is offering free assessment to NAFCU members;

-Cyveillance, an anti-phishing and online credit card monitoring solution that eaves drops on chat rooms of fraudsters;

-Fifth Third provides ATM and debit card processing and offers NAFCU members free debit card marketing program developed in coordination with its customers;

-Hudson & Keyse offers not only debt purchasing but "rehabilitation" for delinquency portfolios of any size, by allowing the credit union to "buy back" the account once the member is back in good stead;

-XpressCredit permits credit unions that cannot approve a particular loan another option before sending the member out the door through a network of lenders with higher risk tolerances and provides the member a referral fee while allowing the credit union to maintain that member relationship;

-Burns-Fazzi, Brock, & Associates, a compensation and benefits consulting firm, will reveal the results of its first annual NAFCU member survey at Annual Conference;

-eZforex.com offers back end foreign currency exchange services and shares fee income with credit union clients at no start up cost; and

-BioPassword provides multi-factor authentication through keystroke monitoring.

All of these solution partners are aimed toward one goal, Frankil stressed--"Business for growth and productivity."

The Fifth Third alliance may have given some credit unions heartburn, but overall it was well received, according to Frankil. "A base of over 350 credit union clients, their relationship with CU24, as well as their pledge to not lobby against credit unions, all speak volumes of their commitment to the credit union community. Plus they are offering an excellent set of solutions in the area of ATM and debit processing."

Overall, Frankil concluded, "The solutions mindset is really resonating, I must say, not just with members but with partners as well." He related this thought to their Annual Conference presentations. "If you look at the topics of their presentations, they're all educational in nature. We take all our partners through dry runs in advance via Webinar...to really make sure that the focus gets maintained because it's a fundamental precept of the model in today's business world. If you walk in with the mindset that 'I'm here to sell you something,' you've lost the battle already."

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