CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Payday now comes early for Carolina Postal Credit Union's United States Postal Service members.
"As a credit union serving solely USPS & Federal employees we look and listen to what our members' needs are," said Carolina Postal CU CEO Joy Watts. "We constantly ask of ourselves at CPCU…'how can we help our members?' And as with many people time was one of the biggest concerns facing our USPS members."
From that original quest came the idea of Priority Payday Checking.
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"Rather than just extend the hours on a payday Friday, like every other financial institution, we decided to really think out of the 'bank' and we moved payday up by two days!" Watts explained.
The concept is simple. Carolina Postal CU posts the ACH payroll early and makes it available to their USPS members by 9:00 a.m. Wednesday. This is a great advantage for USPS members, especially the Letter Carriers, since their busiest and most stressful delivery day is Friday, also the standard payday.
According to CPCU Vice President of Marketing/Business Development Deb McLean, not only has Priority Payday Checking benefited current members, it has driven in new USPS members and increased checking accounts at the credit union.
After the first month, CPCU saw an increase of $1.1 million in core deposits.
"This innovative product truly sums up our internal marketing mantra at Carolina Postal–if it's good for the member, and good for the credit union, then it's good to go! We love to think outside the bank," said McLean.
Carolina Postal CU is following up the official June 1 announcement to their USPS members with a referral campaign for the USPS checking account members.
"We are using our membership as the initial campaign piece–promoting Priority Payday Checking via word-of-mouth is the most powerful, successful, and least expensive advertising we can use," said McLean.
Additional campaign plans include direct mail, branch merchandising, and gift items targeting current users/members of the product to increase word-of-mouth awareness.
The Priority Payday logo and marketing pieces were designed by Minnesota-based Pinpoint Direct Marketing, Inc. and gift items were produced by Render Ad in Georgia.
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