Table of Contents
Cover Story:
Banking On Change
Rockland’s financial institutions adapt to a changing county’s needs
Feature Story:
Give Him Credit
Palisades Federal
Credit Union CEO/President
Mark Welshoff just wants
to save you money
RBD Round-Up:
What's Your Opinion?
County Exec Signs Ban on Smoking in Cars. Do You Agree?
DEPARTMENTS:
Economic Round-Up
• The Smart Investor
Your portfolio is doing great, so why rebalance?
Retail Round-Up
• Delinquencies Decline
Credit card loan delinquencies decline In first quarter of 2007
• New In Town
Businesses opening or expanding in Rockland and Orange Counties
• Why Are The Chains Everywhere?
Retailers who reinvent themselves stay successful
Invest in Your Community
• Red Cross Honors Volunteers
Two award recipients from Rockland County
• Dress Success
Local dentist helps disadvantaged woman get her life together
• School Supplies Drive
Rockland County Board of
Realtors annual drive is here
• Non-Profit Calendar
Dedicated Section:
Rockland Business Association:
The President’s Desk
Time To Celebrate!
RBA marks 40 years of community involvement
Call For Memories
RBA asks for your help to celebrate its 40th anniversary
RBA Happenings
• Committee and Council Info
• Calendar of Events
• New Members
Give Him Credit
Palisades Federal Credit Union CEO/President
Mark Welshoff just wants to save you money.
Here's how he intends to do it.
By Adrian Burke
Welshoff wants more people to know and understand what PFCU is and does. With nearly 9,000 members in Rockland County, PFCU is a full service financial institution providing traditional and special savings accounts, term certificates, IRAs (traditional, Roth, Coverdell educational), Money Market accounts, consumer loans, home loans, vehicle loans, financial planning services, and much more. Originally chartered in 1941 as the Lederle Employees Federal Credit Union, PFCU became the first federal community chartered credit union in Rockland County in 2002. Today, membership is open to anyone who lives, works, worships, or goes to school in Rockland County.
Welshoff joined the company in 1983 and has helped grow this non-profit organization’s assets from $12 million to $150 million. He has ably managed to bring what was a mom-and-pop shop to an ever-expanding financial presence in Rockland. PFCU has three locations, in Pearl River, a satellite on the Wyeth campus, also in Pearl River, along with their first new office in 17 years, which just opened in March on Main Street in New City. Rockland Business Digest talked with Mark Welshoff about Palisades Federal Credit Union.
“The whole point is, we’re either going to save you money or make you money. When you come in, we’re not here to say, we’re going to match any another institution. We’re saying, we have another solution potentially that you may want to consider.”
RBD: How did you get involved with the credit union and what makes you glad you did?
MW: It’s in my blood. I was a finance major in college and there was only one paragraph on money and banking about credit unions, so I knew nothing about them. But, in 1978, just after graduating, I heard about an opportunity at Federal Paperboard Credit Union in Piermont. They were looking for a manager, and I saw it as a good stepping-stone since I was finance major. I stayed there about 4 years, and then an opportunity came knocking to work at the credit union at what was Lederle Employees at the time. I was hired here in 1983 and been here ever since.
What I found out about the financial cooperatives, once I ended up being part of the organization, is that everybody is there to help you. I mean, I had auditors from Massachusetts come to help me and there were people from the New York State Credit Union League that would come down from Albany as consultants.
I went to people’s houses at night to help with their finances. It started that way because we were small potatoes at the time – when you think of the mega-million dollar banks now— we were just $700,000 in assets at that time.
RBD: Were their fewer products and services available at that time?
MW: There were very few products; IRAs weren’t even available and the law had recently changed to allow credit unions to provide checking accounts. CDs were available, but money markets weren’t around. Part of our growth was always limited because up to 1995 we were a single sponsor credit union—we only worked with Lederle up until 1995. For those many years, we focused all of our attention on Lederle employees and their families, ex-employees, and retirees.
“When banks open up a new office they can generate capital by selling stock. Their purpose in being is to generate money for their stockholders. Ours is to generate money to put in the reserve; the rest
gets plowed back in the form of
services, technology to keep our
costs down and paying higher rates
on savings and less on loans.”
RBD: What happened in 1995 to change that?
MW: The credit union’s board of directors decided that they wanted to reduce our risk by expanding into other employee groups, and the federal government allowed us to do that. So then we started going to different businesses in the surrounding community here, trying to get them to be part of our organization. We ended getting a half dozen or more—maybe about a dozen—and that helped us expand our base as much as possible. Then a few years later, we decided the best way to go was to open a community charter that was available to all of Rockland County. So if you live, work, worship or go to school in Rockland County you can open an account in the credit union. That was in 2002. That was a big step for us.
RBD: So where do you make your income? Non-profit or not, you’ve still got to survive.
MW: It’s on loans and investments and its keeping a very, very close tab on expenses. We just opened an office in New City—our first new office in 17 years. When banks open up a new office they can generate capital by selling stock. Their purpose in being is to generate money for their stockholders. Ours is to generate money to put in the reserve; the rest gets plowed back in the form of services, technology to keep our costs down and paying higher rates on savings and less on loans.
RBD: How does a credit union such as PCFU differ from a traditional bank?
MW: When you look at it as non-for-profit vs. profit, our main goal is to provide superior service. The American Banker/Gallup Consumer Survey shows for the 21st year in a row, consumers rated credit unions’ customer satisfaction higher than banks. 71% of members were very satisfied with their credit union. That’s pretty strong. We’re a membership organization, governed by a board of volunteers. We offer better rates on loans, higher rates on savings, and little or no fees.
In terms of convenience, we’ve offered a 24/7 loan service since 1995. That means that anytime you pick up the phone, you’ll get a live person to talk to for a loan application. I even called on Christmas Eve, and was pleased to say that someone answered, ‘PFCU; how may I help you?’ I wanted to make sure someone was working.
We also have more surcharge-free ATMS than any other financial institution in the county. When I say that, I don’t mean there are more ATMS; there is more access, so if you are a member, you can use them without a surcharge.
Something else that we have that no other local financial institution has is a car buying service. If you don’t have the time or the expertise, or feel uncomfortable negotiating, we have your guy. We offer two services—he can teach you how to do it yourself, or he’ll do the negotiating, and both are free if you finance the car with us.
“Now we can turn loans around in an hour or sometimes even better. If I know you, you can fill out the paperwork and I can get you a check for a car loan.
The delinquency rate is
less than 1%.”
RBD: What else sets you apart?
MW: Technically, we have three offices in Rockland County, but members have access to over 2,800 locations throughout the country where they can make deposits and withdrawals and make loan applications. It’s a shared network. So, if a member moves to another part of the country, we try to help them find a location where they can continue their membership. We’re a full service financial institution. The only thing we don’t offer is safe deposit boxes.
RBD: So why isn’t there more awareness of the products and services you provide?
MW: The problem is we have a difficult time getting the general public to understand more about credit unions. It’s extremely difficult because we’re non-profit. We don’t have the type of monies to generate ads and do promotions all the time.
But our service levels are so high, our member retention is great; we have members stay with us for an extremely long time, and then subsequent family members join as well. We actually have several generations of the same family as members. Fifty percent or more of our new membership has come from referrals.
RBD: That’s impressive.
MW: Yes, it is. That’s been our history for the last couple of years, as much as we look at trying to generate new business from new areas, it’s basically coming from our current membership. We’re always there to improve a member’s financial life and change their financial well-being. People ask, “How do you do that? I say, “Call us and I’ll show you.”
RBD: How has the consolidation in the banking industry affected credit unions?
MW: Right now there are 350 plus credit unions in New York State, and about 9,000 in the country. There were originally 25,000 when I came onboard. The reasons follow a similar story to banks in that they’re not being driven out, but usually they’re merged into another institution. We’re one of the few credit unions left in Rockland County. There once were 14; now there only six and many of those are very specialized; one for Verizon employees, Avon used to have one, North Rockland teachers have a credit union, too.
RBD: Does the Board of Directors usually decide on the services and products offered by the credit union?
MW: It depends on the size and the type of credit union; some board members drive the organization by bringing products and services onboard, while others have professional management that will give recommendations. In our case, that’s why our board looks to us to bring on new ideas, thoughts and changes for approval.
A lot has to do with changes to better serve the members. We made some changes with our Home Equity Line of Credit, which compares to any local institution, in terms of what we offer with home equity loans. We’re not going to be able to compete on a first mortgage basis, but on the equity side, we’re really in good shape right now. Rates on home equity, are 1.5% less than prime for life with no closing costs.
RBD: How can you offer products like this lower than the banks?
MW: Because our profit motive is different than theirs; they are looking to generate as much income as possible. They have a lot of resources, more people to choose from— maybe not the local community banks—but in other larger institutions, they have people whose only job is to generate real estate and commercial loans; those are their biggest loans. We’ll do consumer loans for as little as $200.
RBD: How’s the new location in New City working out for you?
MW: Before we opened that office, we had no retail exposure. People would drive by our office in Pearl River and they wouldn’t even know we were there. In New City, there are 14 banks on Main Street. By the time we opened, Hudson Valley Bank had opened up next door, and Commerce Bank is opening down the street from us. HSBC, Provident, USB; they’re all right there. Every bank in the county has a presence in New City, so we were fortunate to get that one location. We’re pretty excited about that, as far as exposure and as far as numbers.
RBD: When you look back on your tenure—24 years with PFCU, what do you view as your biggest accomplishments?
MW: The biggest thing since I’ve been here is working to grow the assets from $12 million to $150 million. We’ve doubled membership to 8,800 members and introduced more technology in keeping our costs down. For instance, we’ve had a website since 1999, well before some of the banks; we’ve offered 24/7 loan service since 1995; the shared service centers, the no surcharge ATMs. We were charter members of NYCE, in fact, the only credit union to join, back in 1985.
We pride ourselves in that most everyone on the exempt level goes to credit union management school, which lasts for two weeks over three summers. Right now, we have five graduates on staff. We encourage training and development of our staff, including our board members, all of whom are volunteers. That’s a big difference between credit unions and banks. That’s a big separation. They’re not paid, which, again, helps keep costs down. We have 27 full-time employees and a few part-time employees.
RBD: What type of CEO are you. Are you still involved daily with your customers?
MW: I have people who come to work for us who can’t believe they can talk to the CEO; members too. I don’t encourage that every single day, but I am accessible. I’m the longest-term employee right now. From that standpoint, I’ve established good relationships with people I helped many years ago, and have the occasion to try to do better for them today. The bottom line, when you come in, we’re not here to say that we’re going to match another institution. We’re just saying we have another solution that you may want to consider.
RBD: Plans for future?
MW: What’s important to us is that our members’ satisfaction is superior and consistent. We want conservative growth, and we want to make sure we can maintain it and the service level we are providing.
Right now, we’re focusing attention on the New City office which just opened in March, and the next thing is to look for options for future storefronts, primarily with drive up capability, but that’s hard. There’s not a lot of available property in Rockland County for that. We’re also trying to partner with some other local companies to place ATMS, building our presence in other companies, hoping that more people become aware of what we do.
RBD: What about commercial accounts?
MW: We started those in June 2006. We have savings, business checking accounts and business loans. The fees are less than the other institutions, and some businesses have seen what our accounts are like. Our transaction fees are pretty liberal, allowing you to get a lot of activity in your account before we start charging. On the other side, we’ve got underwriters looking at our commercial products. We’re attracting deposits so we want to write loans, and if we can’t, we’ll buy them from somebody else.
RBD: PFCU does a lot of community work, too.
MW: Absolutely. We’ve started to expand working with local charities and businesses and organizations throughout the community to give back, that’s one of the things we want to do, try to do, but our resources are limited because we’re a non-profit. We’re members of the RBA, participated in the interfaith auction in Pearl River; we work with United Way; we try to take an active role in taking part in functions that help our communities. RBD
Personal: Married with three kids. Mark and his wife Kathleen live in Florida, NY.
High school: North Rockland High School.
Jets or Giants: Jet season ticket holder since 1971
Reading material: Anything from his favorite authors, James Patterson and John Grisham.
Downtime: Spending lots of time with the kids, playing golf.
Wishes he could: Spend more time fishing. Be in the music business.
Banks? Credit Unions? What’s the Difference?
One of the key differences is that banks have stockholders to whom they need to generate profit and have a paid Board of Directors. Credit Unions are member-owned and operated and have a volunteer-based Board of Directors. Credit unions are also not-for-profit organizations, meaning all of their revenue goes back into providing what’s best for their members. All funds in a credit union are federally insured by the National Credit Union Administration, like the banks’ FDIC, a United States government agency. Your individual account is currently insured to $100,000.00 and your IRA(s) are also insured up to $250,000.00.Who can join PFCU?
Palisades Federal Credit Union is proud to be the first federally insured community chartered credit union in Rockland County. Individuals who live, work, worship or attend school in Rockland County, New York can join.How do you join PFCU?
Simply deposit $5 dollars into a savings account. That's it.
