Banking is booming in the Hudson Valley.
“The area”™s growing so rapidly, and banks are naturally going to try to be as accessible to customers as possible,” says John Dwyer, the Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union”™s director of business services.
With that in mind, the HVFCU is rolling out a new and extensive line of services geared toward the business community: business savings and checking accounts, business lines of credit, overdraft protection, business credit cards, letters of credits and construction mortgages are a sampling of what it is now offering shareholders.
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The HVFCU also has opened a property and casualty, business, homeowners and auto insurance department, all in line to make “one-stop shopping” possible for current ”“ and hopefully future ”“ shareholders, said Bob Doran, the firm”™s new sales and marketing manager. “Our members will be able to walk in and not just get a low-cost car loan, but they will be able to shop for auto insurance, comparing rates of 13 companies to find which one is the best fit.”
The credit union is opening a new branch in Middletown today, May 14, at the Fairgrounds Plaza. Steve Nikitas, who recently joined HVFCU as its vice president of marketing, said the new branch will ease the burden on 1,800 shareholders in the city who currently travel to Newburgh to conduct business.
Plans are also under way to replace the current Newburgh branch on Route 300, just outside the entrance of the Super Wal-Mart. The plan is for a much larger branch that will incorporate the new business services. The Newburgh branch will remain open until the new branch is built directly behind it, a transfer planned for the end of 2007.
“We are very fortunate to be in a high-growth area, and we feel our expanded services are going to be a great benefit to our members,” said Nikitas. “We are also hoping to attract those Generation X and Y members, young workers just starting out. We feel we can offer them a way to save for their future and enjoy the benefits of credit union membership.”
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The HVFCU is riding the crest of the wave of newcomers pouring into the region. While New York, on average, is losing population, the Hudson Valley”™s population is growing faster than anywhere else in the state. Â It”™s a perfect situation, say HVFCU bankers: 50 miles away from the business capital of the world, close enough that New York City is accessible, yet far enough away to enjoy trees, farms, woodchucks and unique regional flavor.
The HVFCU started as a service for IBM employees and operated out of a trailer on IBM”™s Dutchess county campus more than a half-century ago. Services were only available to employees of the company. As time went on, credit unions were gradually allowed to open their memberships to include people who lived worked or were students in the county.
The trailer is long gone, replaced by 14 branches and 188,000 credit union members. TheHVFCU is currently operating in Ulster, Dutchess and Orange counties.
Credit union members aren”™t called depositors ”“ they are “shareholders””” and last year, the HVFCU gave a dividend back to those shareholders totaling $2.5 million. Nikitas attributes the credit union”™s success to conservative investments and its ability to offer lower rates and lower fees than “the big boys.”
“Fees are a big part of their revenue,” Nikitas said of larger commercial institutions. “That is not the case with a credit union.”
And the equation works. Said Nikitas, “Based on our market share, we are the biggest in the Hudson Valley ”“ no one else based here can lay claim to the size of our portfolio: $2 billion-plus in deposits.”
For Nikitas, who came from a Palo Alto, Calif., credit union and who still resides in Massachusetts (commuting each weekend to be with his family), the region”™s Tech Valley is vastly different than his former stomping grounds, Silicon Valley, where houses range in the average of $1 million and “deals are made every night of the week. You cannot get a seat in a restaurant on a Monday evening. Another phenomenon the new Hudson Valley transplant is amazed at is the “overwhelming number of deer in the area. (Hopefully, he won”™t run into one while driving around.)
Nikitas says the Hudson Valley”™s challenges are not unlike those of his native Massachusetts, where house prices are plummeting as the sub-prime market folds. “We are not going to see the full effects of it yet ”¦ 2006 was the year when most of these mortgages were written. There are three empty homes in my small development in Massachusetts that have sat empty for months. What”™s going on here in the Hudson Valley is going on in many places. Massachusetts has consistently lost population three years in a row, now followed by New York and Rhode Island.”
Still, the prospect of working for the HVFCU and helping the credit union expand its services is a challenge the new marketing director and his staff feel they are up to. “We have great products to offer, and we”™re fiscally sound,” he said. “I think our numbers of members attest to that. We”™re looking forward to serving the community in Middletown with our new branch and to growing along with the Hudson Valley.”
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