As we survey the financial landscape after a volatile 2009, we are pleased to report that Members Credit Union fared quite well. In a year in which over 140 banks failed as well as 28 credit unions, Members Credit Union maintained a strong capital to asset ratio of just under 10%, increased assets by 11% [...]

If you are reading this you are probably already a credit union member, yet your primary financial institution may still be a megabank. So, I ask you, what has your bank done for you lately? Since 2008 banks have accepted hundreds of billions of dollars in federal bailout money, raised their already excessive fees to [...]

Last September, the credit crisis became official with the collapse of Wall Street mainstay Lehman Brothers. Although the Main Streets and country roads of North Carolina are far away from New York City we could not escape the aftershocks of this economic disaster. The stock market plummeted. Unemployment soared. Consumer credit dried up. Consumer confidence [...]

Recently released government figures reveal what many of you already knew – Americans have rediscovered the importance of thrift. The national savings rate in January jumped to 5% after checking in at around 0% as recently as last spring. The national spending rate has plummeted by 4.3%, the largest drop in almost 29 years.
This change [...]

I recently received two questions with a similar theme:
My 403 b is losing money. i am putting in the max. amount right now w/ employer matching. am i better off leaving this alone or should i not put in the minimum and put the rest in cd’s? does the match make up more than the [...]

Members Credit Union has a big announcement to make! Today we are launching our own economic stimulus package for our members – one we call the Holiday Skip-a-Pay Program.
When times get tough for our members, we notice…because we’re members too. So, this November and December, we are going to allow members to delay their loan [...]

Members Credit Union’s marketing department has developed an extremely simplified view of what led to the current credit crisis. Obviously omitted were discussions of the derivatives market, insurance programs, and specific investment practices. This was intentional. While we realize that these were factors that exacerbated the problem, it was imperative for us to get to [...]

Although Halloween is just around the corner, many of you have been spooked recently by something quite different than ghouls and goblins. By now, you have likely heard about the global home mortgage “crisis”. Rising foreclosure rates, due in large part to subprime lending (granting loans to riskier borrowers at higher than market interest rates), [...]