adminThe League of Southeastern Credit Unions & Affiliates held its first quarter Board of Directors meetings at Georgia’s Own Credit Union in Atlanta on Feb. 5-6. With the consolidation behind us, much of the meeting was centered on a review of 2019 financial results and discussion on strategic priorities for 2020. At the LSCU meeting, management gave a recap on the strong financial year the League just completed. Overall, the League exceeded budget by $636,728, a stellar fiscal year considering the organization went through a major consolidation and its related costs.
The board received a status update on many of the current strategic priorities, including updates on the legislative sessions which are in full swing in all three states now. Additionally, the board showed the organization’s continued commitment to advocacy by approving a $207,027 contribution to the National Advocacy Fund, which represents our full three-state fair share goal. This money will be used to help support credit union friendly candidates by going above and beyond the typical financial contributions to their campaigns. LSCU & Affiliates is proud to support this fund through our superior financial performance, not something most Leagues are able to do.
Discussion was also held on the recent LSCU & Affiliates reorganization and recent Town Hall meetings held throughout Georgia. The LSCU Board reiterated its support in the organization’s leadership and direction during this time of transition.
Directors also received an update on the 2020 board nomination process as well as had a discussion regarding possible facilitators for its 2020 board planning retreat, which is being held at the end of the Idea Institute in September on Jekyll Island. This will be one of the most important retreats LSCU & Affiliates has held since it was originally formed back in 2009 as we lay out strategic direction for the organization for the next three to five years.
Day 2 of the board meetings kicked off with the first Southeastern Credit Union Foundation (SECUF) Board of Trustees meeting of the year. Much like the LSCU Board meeting, this one began with a review of 2019 year-end performance as well as 2020 strategic priorities update. With the new three-state footprint, the SECUF staff has already been hard at work traveling to raise funds and bring programmatic activities to Alabama, Florida and Georgia credit unions. A review of the 2019 financials allowed the Board to see another strong year for the Foundation, in which we exceeded our budgeted net income by $67,837. This is due to the commitment our credit unions have shown in supporting a strong Foundation, and we cannot thank you enough.
Financial wellness remains a top priority for the Foundation, and Juli Lewis, director of SECUF, has been busy looking for innovative ways to bring financial education to our communities. One initiative the Foundation is researching is bringing financial wellness to credit union employees. We expect to roll this initiative out in 2020, so stay tuned in for more information on this.
Following the Foundation meeting, Affiliates Consolidated Services (ACS) held its first quarter board meeting. The wholly owned holding company of the LSCU welcomed two new at-large directors to their first face-to-face meeting, Drew Egan and Darryl Worrell. At the meeting, ACS Management reported on year-end financials, showing that overall, ACS and its sub-companies had a good year in 2019 with total revenue at $23,157,635 minus total expenses at $22,125,831 giving us a net income after taxes of $369,489.
Management presented the strategic priorities for first quarter for all the departments with each department providing three to 10 strategic priorities that they are either working on or have completed in the first quarter. The ACS Innovation Committee presented two new products that product development has been working on. One of the products will allow credit unions to use text to communicate with their members in a secure and TCPA-compliant way. The other product is an omnichannel digital solution that offers an integrated solution for the four pillars of digital banking.
LEVERAGE reported out on the buyback of MY CU Services Stock. As part of the purchase of CSI, a 4.6% interest in MY CU Services, was acquired by ACS. In September, Vizo Financial decided it would like to acquire all the outstanding shares of MY CU Services and roll it back into the corporate. ACS and the Carolinas CU League were the only outside shareholders. The sale was consummated in January of 2020.
Another topic of discussion was LEVERAGE Business Lending (LBL). In 2015, LEVERAGE made an investment into Capital Growth Solutions to form LBL. In January of 2020, Capital Growth Solutions started to payback the investment to LEVERAGE. Capital Growth Solutions has decided to consolidate its loan servicing platform into Windsor Advantage to reduce expenses and to set themselves up for expansion in the future.
The LSCU & Affiliates Q2 Board meetings will be held in conjunction with the Southeastern Credit Union Conference & Expo (SCUCE) in June.
