CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Carolina Postal Credit Union wants to help its teen members "Get with the Program."
Designed to help teens develop healthy savings and lending habits, "Get with the Program" offers a simple six-step method to educate and enable them to build within a year's time, a healthy credit history and a substantial savings account balance. Teens can begin at age 16 and by age 18 have their first shared-secured loan.
"We need to do more to educate our young members on the way to a positive credit history," said Carolina Postal CU CEO Joy Watts. "'Get with the Program' is a way to achieve that and build member loyalty with the next generation."
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Here is how it works, teens set up a monthly or bi-monthly deduction into a savings account for six months. Once the savings account hits a minimum of $500, the member makes a share-secured $500 loan against it and immediately redeposits it into the savings account.
From there the member either changes the deductions to a loan payment or adds a loan payment to his/her deduction set up to pay off the loan in six months. The result at the end of six months is a teen member who has a solid history of loan payments, savings deductions, over $1,000 in savings and a decent credit score, which allows him or her to move to the next phase of a shared-secured Visa credit card or even a car loan says CPCU Vice President of Marketing/Business Development Deb McLean "It is not a quick-fix nor a silver bullet," said McLean, "But we are at least offering our members an opportunity to start fixing bad credit history in a way that they can understand and adapt to."
"Education is key," added Watts. "Our Account Managers will work closely with our members on the other options they have to start cleaning up their credit history. And as far as our teen members, we hope 'Get with the Program' is both pro-active and preventative."
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