Third annual survey also shows that credit union CEOs are optimistic about 2012 but remain concerned about the weak economy, loan demand and regulatory burden.

AUSTIN, Texas – According to Abound Resources’ survey of more than 450 senior credit union executives, CEOs are feeling more positive than last year in spite of the regulatory cloud. Only 16% report that they are either somewhat or very pessimistic about 2012 and almost half of CEOs (43%) feel either somewhat optimistic or very optimistic about 2012.

Unlike 2011, when CEOs were uncertain about what regulations such as the Dodd-Frank Act and the Durbin Amendment would really mean for their institutions, CEOs in 2012 are a bit more optimistic because they are now able to plan for the impact of these and other regulations and drive their organizations toward the future.

But regulations, along with a weak economy and loan demand, continue to weigh on CEOs minds. “Credit unions CEOs are very concerned about the regulatory environment because they often lack internal resources to fully understand what will be required,” said Brad Smith, President and CEO of Abound Resources. “Most credit unions will require external assistance to fully prepare for the coming regulatory requirements.”

While operational efficiency and improving utilization and ROI on technology remain high priorities, CEOs place increased importance on improving sales and marketing with 57% of CEOS naming it as their number one growth priority. Almost half (46%) indicated that expanding online presence and adding electronic banking channels is a high priority. “Credit union CEOs are recognizing that they need to step up their efforts to gain market share and demonstrate state of the art delivery channel technology to compete in today’s increasingly electronic and mobile financial services environment,” noted Smith.

Consistent with 2010 and 2011 surveys results, improving efficiency and better use of technology are CEOs’ top cost savings priorities.

In addition to CEOs, Abound Resources polled chief operating officers, chief information officers and chief financial officers about their technology concerns and project plans.

COOs, CIOs and CFOs plan to extract more value from existing technology purchases and vendor relationships, with 68% naming optimization as their top concern for 2012. In addition, these executives are also concerned about delivering quality support to users, information security and compliance, and not having enough resources to complete projects. Three-quarters (72%) of respondents reported that their technology spending would remain flat or only slightly elevated, and only 15% noted that spending would increase significantly

However, comparing CEO growth priorities with COO, CIO and CFO technology project plans shows a clear disconnect. “The priorities for the C-suite center on technologies that increase customer convenience but don’t move the needle on the CEO’s focus on improving sales and marketing,” said Smith.

A complimentary whitepaper analyzing the complete survey results o will be available for download from January 24^th at www.aboundresources.com.

About Abound Resources

Abound Resources is a full service management consulting firm devoted to the community financial services industry.  They provide a full array of services designed to improve performance and profitability and help cope with an increasingly stringent regulatory environment, which includes:

• Technology
• Small Business & Commercial
• Operations and Payments
• Retail Strategy, Marketing and Sales
• Lending
• Risk Management and Compliance
• Strategic Planning

CONTACT:

Deirdre Grubbs, Marketing Director, 512-351-3703, dgrubbs@aboundresources.com

For more information on Abound Resources' please visit http://www.AboundResources.com

FREE RESOURCES:

A complimentary whitepaper analyzing the survey results will be available on January 24^th from the Abound Resources website

Brad Smith, President and CEO of Abound Resources, will present the highlights of the survey in a free webinar on January 24, 2012 at 2:00pm Central. To register: please go to the following link:  http://www.aboundresources.com/resource-library/live-webinars/credit-unions-insights-2012-industry-trends-and-recommended-strategie

Additional free resources can be found at http://www.aboundresources.com/resource-library

Abound Resources’ proprietary contract negotiations methodology has saved community financial institutions tens of millions of dollars and built in thousands of protective provisions to guarantee ongoing success and cost efficiency.

You will be “married” to your selected vendors and it is important that you negotiate both the best price and best terms to create a “win/win” relationship.

Whether you are negotiating new contracts or renegotiating existing contracts, our methodology applies.

Please join us for this complimentary one hour executive briefing where we will discuss:

• Secrets to getting better pricing including the easy way to get 10% price cuts as a starting point
• How to know if you’re paying list price and what to do to pay less
• How to get service level agreements (SLAs) built into contracts to encourage vendors to meet your expected service levels 
• Where vendors can and will cut and what their margins are
• The top 5 riskiest terms you need address
• How to build vendor management compliance into all contracts

Presenter: Brad Smith, President and CEO of Abound Resources. Brad has over 20 years experience helping community financial institutions achieve their business goals. His specialty is integrating credit union strategy with product, operations, technology and sales execution. He also serves as a strategy and technology advisor to several industry trade associations, is a guest lecturer at two banking schools and is a frequent speaker at industry shows.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was formed through the Dodd Frank Act and took over direct regulation of member compliance issues for credit unions as of July 21, 2011.

Although CFPB will initially focus on credit unions over $10 billion in assets, the direction of the Bureau will impact all credit unions as they set the tone for member compliance examination. The new examination manual is therefore of great interest to all financial institutions.

The Bureau is starting to examine the larger credit unions and issued examination manuals in October 2011. The Bureau can also participate in examinations of smaller financial institutions, along with the primary federal regulators (FDIC, FRB, OCC, NCUA). Additionally, the Bureau has taken over “ownership” of a lengthy list of member regulations from the Federal Reserve.

Please join us for a complimentary briefing during which we will discuss:

• What is the mission of the Bureau?
• What are areas of primary focus – the “Core Functions” of the CFPB?
• What is the Office of Servicemembers Affairs?
• What regulations are now “owned” by the CFPB? What regulations did not move to the new Bureau?
• UDAAP – The new manual defines abusive practices! What to look for.
• What is new in the manual in the sections built upon prior examination manuals (HMDA, TILA, RESPA, etc.)
• Efforts on the combined early TILA and GFE  (Know Before You Owe) – What is the status? Can we expect more combined disclosures?

And, we'll take your questions!

Regulators are increasingly advising financial institutions to develop and improve their enterprise risk management programs.  Boards of Directors and Management, however, struggle to determine exactly what these programs should include, how they should be documented and how they should be implemented. 

Please join us for this complimentary one hour executive briefing, where, participants will learn about:

• Understanding an institution’s “Risk Appetite”
• Developing a Risk Appetite statement
• Methods for developing and documenting risk assessments
• Preparing Risk Control Self Assessments
• Determining Key Performance and Key Risk Indicators
• Developing a Key Risk Indicator Dashboard and supporting “Risk Indices”
• Structuring the ERM Organization

This webinar was held as part of our FREE Webinar Series. It is available to download free on demand.

The small business banking market can be a lucrative and stable source of customers.  The key is to approach this market with a complete banking relationship and an understanding of the unique needs of small businesses.

Please join us for a complimentary one hour executive web briefing during which we will share experiences and insights around approaching this market.The small business banking market can be a lucrative and stable source of customers.  The key is to approach this market with a complete banking relationship and an understanding of the unique needs of small businesses.

We will discuss:

1. How to grow fee income from small business accounts
2. How to avoid the Profitability Killers  -- 3 key decisions to avoid that reduce small business customer income
3. How to estimate your small business market opportunity
4. How to segment your market and tailor products to customer needs
5. A small business profitability model
6. A review of emerging products that will appeal to small businesses
7. Five sales and marketing best practices for growing small business accounts

And we'll take your questions!

 Brad Smith, President and CEO of Abound Resources. Brad Smith has over 20 years experience helping community financial institutions achieve their business goals. His specialty is integrating credit union strategy with product, operations, technology and sales execution. He also serves as a strategy and technology advisor to several industry trade associations, is a guest lecturer at two banking schools and is a frequent speaker at industry shows.

OCTOBER 10, 2011

There are new regulations that will impact virtually every ATM machine in the country.  This complimentary one hour exclusive briefing will highlight questions related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and financial institutions, including requirements for automated teller machines (ATMs).

We will discuss:

• What types of businesses are covered by the ADA
• What are the requirements of the ADA for ATMs
• What is the deadline for ATM compliance under the Act
• What other requirements of the ADA affect financial institutions
• Are financial institutions required to bring other forms of communications into compliance such as websites, telephones, and in person communications
• How can financial institutions determine the requirements, and determine if compliance would constitute an “undue burden” under the Act

Presenter: Kathleen Blanchard, Senior Consultant, Abound Resources, Inc. Kathleen has 25 years banking experience, including risk management and internal controls, compliance, lending and credit policy at large multi-bank and smaller community bank financial institutions. She has served as BSA/AML/OFAC Officer, Privacy Officer, Compliance Manager and Risk Manager. She has had articles published in Compliance Weekly and the ABA Banking Journal.

A white paper developed for Sheshunoff/A.S Pratt that summarizes the key elements of the current regulartory environment.

In response to our clients' questions about how to deal with the difficult economic and regulatory environment, Abound Resources has developed a set of solutions to assist Community Banks.

These solutions are designed to:

• Lower risk management and compliance costs
• Wring the last bit of efficiencies out of technology and operations
• Increase the fee income from commercial and small business customers

During this session we will discuss:

• The top 3 strategies for dealing with Dodd-Frank, Durbin, Reg Q and the difficult economy
• Abound's comprehensive fee generating program designed to at least double your commercial checking and cash management fee income and double your commercial checking balances
• Abound's outsourced vendor cost, contract and compliance program designed to lower vendor costs, improve vendor performance and manage vendor risks. It is guaranteed to meet all regulatory guidelines for vendor management, lower the amounts you spend with your vendors by at least 8% and cut the time you spend on your vendor management program by at least 75%
• Abound's outsourced compliance-program - a comphrensive program to provide enterprise risk management and compliance review at a fraction of the cost of doing it yourself

“Vision without action is a daydream…Action without vision is confusion.”

 – Bob Moore

Strategy Meets Execution

Do you have a vision for your bank but struggle to get your team to execute? Or are you so focused on addressing the challenges of today that you can’t think about next year?

The New Regulatory World Order appears to be here to stay. No blockbuster product has emerged to solve our fee income challenges. So what is your plan to grow? Can that vision be executed by your team? Does every department and employee know their role in executing that vision? Do you have the products, the marketing and sales model, the operations and technology infrastructure, and the risk management processes to execute your vision?

30 Minute Strategic Discussion

Please join us for this 30 minute Executive Level discussion of the issues around building and executing an effective Strategic Plan. 

During the discussion we will touch on the…

Top 10 Reasons You Might Need a New Strategic Plan…

…and discuss how you, as a senior executive, can translate the clear plan you probably have in your head, into a clear and actionable plan that your team can identify with and execute on.

Presenter: 

Brad Smith, President  and CEO of Abound Resources. Brad has advised community financial institutions on merger integration, back office consolidation and efficiency improvement for 20 years.

It's important to always put efficiency in context:  what does it mean?  

• A poor Efficiency Ratio usually indicates sales, product, and overhead problems.
• It's one of many metrics to compare and help diagnose; it's not the answer
• Think long-term—efficiency investment today may not pay off for years
• Efficiency Ratio vs. Efficient vs. Effective
• Teach your people the difference between Productive and Effective

Reliance on vendors brings risk.  As such, it's a regulatory hot button that will only get hotter.

Many efficiency projects never achieve the expected benefits because they never get implemented. Those that do often only serve as a one-time fix before the bank falls back into inefficient habits. Worse, many of those initiatives end up creating irreversible employee fears or irreparable damage to customers.
Today’s challenges call for a better way to address efficiency. What is needed is a long-lasting, strategic approach that will not hurt customers or create a fearful work environment for your employees.
In our experience, success comes from a strategic, three legged stool approach that includes revenue management, expense management and a relentless focus on improving business processes.

Learn the Five Ways IT and Ops Can Ease the Sting of Regulatory Reform ....

Some encouraging signs:

• Unprofitable institutions are down significantly...some as the result of consolidation but many as a result of having hit the bottom of problem loans and are on the way back up
• Net Interest margin is up
• Charge offs are down a bit
• Unfortunately non-interest income to earning assets continues its downward trend but it was mostly flat last year
• ROA, while not great, is at least – on average – positive

What are 7 critical issues facing today's bank executives?

Many community banks are unaware that they already offer the cash management products to launch or expand their commercial cash management business because their current products are offered as a knee-jerk reaction to customer demand.

IT spending is the second largest non-interest expense and is growing 8-10% a year yet efficiency ratios are flat. So we hear many Boards and executives asking if technology is delivering on its promise. We also hear from CIOs and IT Executives who say they can’t get their users engaged. They buy great products, but people don’t invest the time to learn them.

We believe that all cash management decisions, including products and pricing, start with your target market. Who are you going after? Who are you trying to serve? You don’t decide to do remote deposit capture and then decide who to sell it to – you decide who your target market is and then which products and services are of value to them.