The collapse of a $12 billion Cleveland bank Friday is certain to provide new grist for credit union membership and marketing campaigns, according to CU officials across the state.
Though CUs have been reticent about directly exploiting banking's travails, membership is "definitely on the increase and we've seen it jump 30,000 in the first two quarters of 2009, the biggest rise in five years," said a spokesman for the Ohio Credit Union League in Columbus.
Over the weekend under FDIC auspices, New York Community Bank of Westbury took over the long troubled and family-owned AmTrust Bank, a former thrift. The failure was the 130th in 2009 and was joined by a handful of smaller failures in Georgia and Virginia, also on Friday.
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Over the last year CUs in the Cleveland market have often stressed safety and security in TV and print ads, factors which have helped draw new members.
"I was talking to one of my counterparts at National City and I mentioned to him that every time they are in the news discussing banking's problems, we get new money," quipped Fred Siegel, business development manager at the $40 million Eaton Family CU of Euclid.
The Ohio League spokesman said membership in the state has remained generally flat at 2.6-2.7 million the last five years "but no longer."
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