At two credit unions in the Midwest, a radical culture change inthe workplace and a shift in how collection efforts were carriedout have helped their respective loan portfolios grow.

For the $1.5 billion Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union in St. Paul, Minn., thecollections department became the “solutions” department a fewyears ago, said Dave Larson, senior vice president.

Larson was one of the guest speakers today during the “Loans:The Next Frontier” Web seminar, which was hosted by CreditUnion Times and moderated by Sarah Snell Cooke, editor inchief.

VIEWING: Watch the webinar here.

That name change helped Affinity Plus to empathize with amember's circumstances rather than rely on traditional methods ofcollecting on delinquent loans, Larson said.

“We start with the person, not the credit score. The answer isacross the desk, on the phone or an email,” Larson said. “We do usecredit for pricing but that's not where we start. Bad things canhappen to good people.”

Affinity Plus currently has $1.4 billion in total loans with mortgage making up a very aggressive slice of theportfolio pie, Larson noted. Consumer loans take up about 15% whilereal estate continues to grow, he added. Despite having a $350billion indirect loan business at one point, the credit union decidedto exit the business in 2004 because it struggled to buildlong-term relationships this way.

Larson said while it was a hard decision to make, it was just aswell since the move fit nicely with how Affinity Plus changed itsthinking toward helping members who may have fallen on badfinancial times. Eighty percent of the credit union's more than150,000 members are borrowers and over 99% of them pay their loanson time every month, he said. More than 80% of new members arereferred to Affinity Plus by current members.

“Prior to 2004, we dialed for dollars. Performance was based onthe number of calls and contests – who would pay and wouldn't paytheir loans,” Larson said. “We didn't think it brought meaning intobanking at Affinity Plus. So, we took a look at collections andsaid 'let's turn this inside out.'”

At the $1.7 billion Community First Credit Union in Appleton, Wis., a sales andservice transformation has also helped not only loan growth butacross other channels, said Minh McKenzie, vice president of salesand service. It started with a credit union-wide training programthat emphasized member satisfaction, accelerated growth and gainingmarket share.

Sixty percent of Community First members are borrowers and thecredit union's delinquency rate is 0.73%. Between 2007 and 2012,the credit union increased its ability to protect moreloans going from 18% to 48% as of June. GAP protectionusage increased from 30% to 52% during the same period.

“Our objective was to modify some of our behaviors and transformthe team to provide a 'wow member' experience,”McKenzie said. “We wanted to make sure we were improving saleswithout sacrificing service.”

McKenzie, who was hired at the credit union in 2007, came fromWells Fargo. Ironically, the same bank used the same trainingprogram that Community First implemented but there was a glaringdifference.

“Wells Fargo did not focus on the service piece. It focused onthe sales piece” McKenzie said. “It was product centric, notcustomer centric.”

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