Madison, Wis. -- Branch building will continue in the near future, but it will be tempered by economic realities and lack the aggressive posture of the past. That’s the message of “Branch Strategies,” a new white paper just released by the CUNA Operations, Sales & Service (OpSS) Council. The paper also presents compelling evidence that the slowdown will affect both banks and credit unions.

Branch expansion requires a significant investment, but also generates a better than average adjusted ROI, according to research conducted by the Applied Research Institute of the California and Nevada leagues cited in the paper. Branch locations also drive checking growth and primary financial institutional status, the research also found.

Credit unions may take another look at the grocery store branch business model as more switch to community charters.
There are advantages: the market research has already been done, foot traffic is guaranteed, the cost is much less than a traditional branch and the hours are extended. There are, of course, disadvantages with a lack of a drive-up and lack of control over the lease and building, a small space and high transactions and sometimes low loan volumes.

A new type of branch employee is evolving both in the grocery store and in the traditional branch. As the branch evolves more to an advisory from a transactional role, employees are becoming cross trained in opening accounts, loan applications, CDs, sales and the branch staff can no longer be just an order taker. Most importantly, the new branch employee has to be a relationship builder.

“Branching Strategies are so important for credit unions that we have included a session on ‘Branch Efficiencies Through Automation’ at our annual conference, September 27 – 30, 2009 in San Diego,” said Carolyn Jordan, Chair of the CUNA Operations Sales & Service Council and SVP Retail Operations, Neighborhood CU, Dallas, Texas. “Remote deposit capture as well as design and architectural considerations will be discussed in the session conducted by John Best, Director of Technology at Wescom CU in Pasadena, Calif.”

CUNA Council members are entitled to complimentary copies of these and more than 200 white papers; non-members may purchase the white papers for a price of $50 per copy.

The paper is available online in the white paper section of
www.cunacouncils.org select the “OpSS” tab.

Press contacts can download the white paper here (until 10/5):
http://resource.cuna.org/dl/f0921Ooadfa.pdf