It's April 16. Have you filed your personal income taxes? Hope so, because for most of us, April 15 marks the close of another painful tax season. It also marks the end of tax marketing season for your credit union. Now your Web person can take down the turbo tax links like unstringing Christmas lights after New Years. And your marketing team can put away the 2009 IRA contribution messages like the leftover Thanksgiving turkey.
Like other seasons, tax season has its own traditions of earning extra income by making it easy to file and collecting some additional deposits based on tax code deductions. But like Easter, tax season sneaks up on us and hops away quickly, leaving us staring at business as usual until around…well, Halloween.
But one opportunity remains beyond tax season, and I am not talking about filing extensions. I am talking about IRA rollover season. At least that is what our competitors call it. For years, brokers, banks, mutual fund companies, insurance companies and financial advisors have looked at the year in two parts-the first of the year is about new deposits and the rest of the year is about grabbing the much bigger rollover dollars from job changers and retiring customers.
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We are currently in the midst of the largest movement of personal assets in history with the rollovers expected to reach $7 trillion by 2011. Yeah, that's trillion with a tr. With massive layoffs of people of all ages, 16.7 million boomers scheduled to retire this year, and disappointed retired investors taking control of their 401(k)s, the question is whether credit unions are just going to sit there. Members trust their credit unions, and retirees want a trusted place for their retirement savings. Can credit unions learn new tricks….like rolling over? As a movement, shouldn't we help members move their money? It's not much harder than reaching out to members during tax season. This is what you need to do:
1. Offer traditional and Roth IRAs
2. Offer savings products inside (investments would be great also)
3. Market to members that they can roll over their 401(k)s from their former employers to you
4. Provide rollover forms or account numbers for their employer's rollover forms
5. Help them with any questions they have
6. Confirm when the rollover has occurred
What could be a bigger opportunity this summer?
This guest blog was written by Jeffrey Hunt of CUNA Mutual Group.
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