Community First, since 1959 , has been Doing Good!
New
Shred Days
7/16 - Clearlake

7/30 - Lakeport

8/1 - Napa

8/5 - Fort Bragg

8/15 - Santa Rosa *

9/2 - Sebastopol

9/2 - Ukiah

All Shred Days are from 9a to 11a.

* Santa Rosa event will be held at HQ, 1105 N. Dutton Ave.
Mid-Year Report
It’s mid-year. Seems like a decade, doesn’t it?

But our abnormal-normal has become kind of normal.

All branches are open, albeit with slightly shorter hours (10a to 5p, M–F) to lessen the potential spread of COVID-19. We are metering Members at the door to lessen the density and increase the spacing of people inside. It’s working pretty well.

And thank you, Members. You’ve been most helpful.  More of you are now accessing CFCU’s free, convenient and secure technology. Mobile banking, ATMs, making deposits via your smartphone, making loan payments online, to name a few. 

More of you are using your CFCU debit cards and credit cards. Plus, CFCU debit cards going forward will have the “contactless” feature embedded (see article in this newsletter for details).

The number of Members using “Maggie,” our artificially intelligent, 24/7 virtual banking assistant, has tripled in the past couple of months.  As have the number of Members utilizing the financial literacy modules on our website.

We are still doing a boat-load of car loans (and boat loans, as well). Our mortgage unit has never been busier (see article elsewhere in this newsletter).

Unfortunately, positive cases of COVID-19 have never been higher. Cases are climbing slightly in our field of Membership: Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa and Sonoma counties. But cases are skyrocketing elsewhere in California, including some rural counties with similar job and demographic make-ups as ours. 

So, we continue to adhere to our branch protocols: limit the number of Members inside, extra cleanings inside and at the ATM, and  everyone  has to wear a mask over their nose and mouth at all times.

Together we’ll get through this, and we will keep each other safe.

Thank you for being a Member of this $600-million strong, not-for-profit, financial cooperative that is Here For Good!
Contactless Debit Cards Are Here!
Community First has gone Contactless! You can now tap to pay with your debit card or a device, whichever is best for you. 

Contactless debit cards allow you to pay with a single tap at many of your favorite merchants. Tap to pay is faster, easier (a simple tap is all it takes), and secure.  

Community First is the first locally based credit union or bank to offer a contactless feature.  And our timing couldn’t be more spot on. Increasingly, because of COVID-19, consumers are demanding fewer touches to pay. 

How do you know if your merchant allows contactless payment? Simple, look for the wifi symbol (shown in the picture above) at checkout. 

Contactless payments are fast and easy, which make them ideal for places like take-out restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops, and more. 

Contactless payments are safe, and you cannot pay accidentally. Your card must be within four centimeters of the payment reader. And you will not be billed twice if you tap twice. 

Use of CFCU’s existing mobile wallet, where you can add Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay and pay via your smartphone is way up (BTW –– to add your Community First debit card to your Apple, Google or Samsung Wallet app, open the Wallet app on your phone, tap the plus sign and use the camera to capture and enter the card information). Indeed, since shelter-in-place, more than 30% of Americans have used some sort of contactless pay.

And unlike cash, contactless payments provide a record of your purchases.  

Regardless of the contactless feature, your new CFCU debit card will work like any other debit card.  It also comes with a chip and a magnetic stripe, which means you can make any kind of transaction, depending on the sophistication of the merchant: contactless, inserting as a chip card, or old-style swiping. 

When your CFCU debit card is up for renewal, it will be replaced with the additional contactless feature.

Once again, Community First is way ahead of its locally based brethren of credit unions and community banks: first to have a 24/7 virtual assistant, first to have a complete mirror image of its English website in Spanish, and now the first to offer contactless debit cards!
Stellar Growth in Real Estate Loans, Membership
We’ve assembled a very good (and VERY experienced) mortgage team here at Community First. Our growth in originating home loans is starting to turn heads –– nationally.

In the annual Credit Union Directory , published recently by Callahan & Associates, it ranked Community First with the 26 th highest growth rate in mortgage originations in 2019 among all 5,349 credit unions in the U.S.

Mortgage loans by credit unions grew 8.42% nationally in 2019. Not bad. But they grew by a whopping 63.25% at Community First! That eight-times-faster-than-the-industry growth rate put CFCU in an elite 99.5 growth percentile.

That was last year, and only now are national statistics available. What about this year? How about the $68 million in home loans produced by CFCU through the first five months of this year! That’s nearly twice the $34.8 million during the same time last year –– and done amidst the backdrop and additional machinations of COVID-19?

Another way we like to measure ourselves is by growth in Membership. After all, people vote with their wallets. For financial institutions between $500 million and $1 billion in assets (like CFCU), the growth rate of net new Members in 2019 was 2.45%. Community First added net new Members at nearly two-and-a-half times that pace: 5.76%.

Are we satisfied? Not yet. We still want to get the word out to non-Members that Community First offers the best bang for their locally earned bucks. Whether it is earnings on deposits, lower loan rates, or lower (and fewer) fees, we want to do more good for more people. Help us pass along the word as to how CFCU can bring financial good to your personal and business friends. Since 1959, we have been Here for Good!
Summertime Special –– Share CDs
The Federal Reserve has cut the Fed Funds rate to 0%. That makes lending more accommodative in an anemic economy, but it sure puts a 100-ton anvil on deposit rates.  

Despite that backdrop, Community First continues to offer some anvil-defying deposit rates. For example, we  still  offer the nation’s highest rate for young savers (up to 18 years, and on the first $500 in the account). The yield on our basic savings account continues to be 10x higher than the national banks. 

Want more? And faster? Welcome to CFCU’s Summertime “Member Appreciation” Special with blazing hot Share CD rates. Beginning July 15 and running through month’s end, we will ratchet up the Annual Percentage Yields on three CDs at three terms: 6-months, a special 9-month term, and 12-months. We think you are going to particularly like 0.90% (APY) at only 12 months (right now you’d have to wait 36 months to get that same gain.) 

Remember, at Community First there are no dollar tiers. No games. No teaser rates for money from new Members. Invest as much over $1,000 as you want. After all, a financial co-op looks out for the rest of us and not the one-percenters.
707-546-6000
PO Box 6004,
Santa Rosa, CA 95406