2022 Patelco Annual Report (1) - Flipbook - Page 4
President
and CEO’s
report
2022 was a successful year for Patelco despite
global economic challenges and continuing
effects from the pandemic. Significantly, it
was a successful year because of what we did
for our members – not just because of the
numbers we generated. While banks measure
their success by their return to shareholders,
we measure our success each year by how we
benefited you as a member.
3
2022
ANNUAL REPORT
Credit unions were founded at a time when most
Americans did not have access to financial services
and credit. The charter design of credit unions
was simple: a financial cooperative to provide
credit for provident purposes and to help those of
moderate means. The founding principles were
simple too: “People helping people” and “not for
profit, not for charity, but for service.” These tenets
epitomize the credit union difference. Amidst the
economic uncertainty and turmoil in the banking
sector today, Patelco is more committed than ever
to realizing these founding principles and enriching
our members’ financial wellbeing. Here’s how we
did that in 2022.
Enabling you to take advantage
of higher interest rates
Higher interest rates were one of the significant
newsmakers in 2022, as the Fed tried to reign
in inflation. In response, we created three share
certificate specials so that our members could
take advantage of rising rates. With the wild
swings of the market in 2022, it was even more
important for our members’ financial wellbeing to
have funds in NCUA-insured share certificates.
Responding to inflation
The downside to the high-rate environment
was that it increased the cost of credit, and some
members with variable rate debt struggled to
make loan payments. Higher loan payments
coupled with inflationary prices for necessary living
expenses challenged many of our members just
to make ends meet; our team was there to help.
In addition to working with members individually
who called us for temporary loan relief, by the
end of 2022 our Certified Financial Specialists
had delivered more than 2,400 financial coaching
sessions. Beyond our own membership, we also
provided more than a thousand hours of financial
education throughout the communities in our
footprint – giving people the knowledge to make
the right decisions.
Giving you the knowledge to fight fraud
Fraud also continued to make the news, with
scams hitting unprecedented levels. It’s affecting
our members, too – which is why we’ve expanded
our fraud department and are boosting our efforts
to educate members to help them avoid scams.
We recently created a dedicated team accessible
by phone so members can call to get an expert
perspective on a situation that doesn’t feel right. We
held fraud prevention clinics at area senior centers,
and started a monthly newsletter highlighting the
most recent scams and how to avoid them.
And when we debuted our brand new website at
the end of 2022, it had a refreshed fraud center,
which we will regularly update. We also created an
internal fraud resource center for our team so they
can be better prepared to assist members. All this
is paying off – we prevented $1,859,754 potential
fraud losses to members last year. And we’ll
continue adapting and educating to protect you.