In my column last month, I wrote about how credit unions need tostart embracing the technology that many banks use.

Since then I've had the opportunity to try out a credit unionproduct that does just that. Debt in Focus (www.debtinfocus.com) isa free debt management Web site that was developed by Filene's i3group.

My first reaction to the site was that it was clean and tookonly a few minutes to complete the survey.
I went through three simple screens to get my results. I put in myincome, my debt, answered a few quick questions and was done.

On the results page, I was shown my income, my total debt, mydebt-to-income ratio, my revolving debt and a pie chart showing mytarget budget for my income. In the debt portion of the process, Iwould have liked to have been able to put in all my monthlyexpenses to get a complete overview of my obligations. The sectiononly allowed for loans and rent.

The tool I found most useful in completing the process was aprintable sheet provided to create my own budget. The sheetincluded suggested amounts calculated from the information providedand outlined different areas where I could fill in expense amountsfor myself.

For targeting people my age, providing a tool that outlines abudget for us is really what credit unions need to be focusing on.We're starting out with our own real money for the first time inour lives; we have our own debt to pay down and our own bills tocover; and we want to be told how to cover it all.

One shortfall of the budgeting sheet, I felt, was that Icouldn't make adjustments to the suggested amounts. Hoboken, N.J.,across the river from New York City, is a high-rent area, and therent suggested by the Web site was much lower than my actualamount. I wanted to be able to adjust the suggested amount to myactual amount and see how that would impact the suggested amountsfor other areas in my budget.

The site also has a section at the end to link consumers to acredit union near them. For credit unions that use this tool, Ithink it should go a step further and connect the member with thecredit union.

After I finished everything, the information was extremelyuseful, but I also had the feeling of, “OK, now what?” There shouldbe section where members can then make an appointment to meet withsomeone at the credit union to go over the information and find outwhat services are available to help them meet their budgets.

Overall, the tool is simple and shows that credit unions aregetting the ball rolling in the right direction. It can be usedamong people my age, people older than me with mortgages and moredebt and even people younger than me to project their expectedincome and debt so they can start planning their financialfuture.

Since the site is new, one of the Filene innovators, ChadGraves, vice president information technology at Ent Federal CreditUnion, said that the group is still looking for areas ofimprovement and things to tweak.

I've written before about how credit unions need to do morecollaborating, and this is an area that I think credit unions willreally start to see results by working together. This tool is astart for credit unions to get together and mold a product that allcredit unions can offer so the movement as a whole can say, “We notonly provide the education to make good financial choices, but wealso provide the tools and technology to make it a reality.”

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