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For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jan Dailey, SVP, Marketing Manager
972-391-6191, jan.dailey@tnbcard.com
Kristine Tanzillo, Dux Public Relations
972-889-9577, kristine@duxpr.com
TNB CARD SERVICES CLIENTS GAIN
MORE THAN $5 MILLION IN FALL BALANCE TRANSFER
PROMOTION
DALLAS – February 27,
2006 – Thirty-one TNB Card Services credit union
clients reaped the benefits of a pre-holiday balance
transfer promotion, gaining well over $5 million in
balances. TNB today announced the results of its
annual fall promotion, which ran from September
through November 2005.
The promotion was even more
effective than the fall 2004 promotion, both in its
response rate and the average balance transferred,
said Glen Lee, first senior vice president of TNB
Card Services.
“The combination of
attractive interest rates on the balances
transferred and effective marketing made this
promotion a huge success,” Lee said. “It yielded
the highest average balance transfer we’ve ever
seen, over $3,500 per account. Clearly, the timing
was right, as people moved these balances off
competing high-interest rate cards onto their credit
union cards before the Christmas shopping season
shifted into high gear.”
The average balance transferred
per account was more than 15 percent higher than the
2004 promotion and the overall response rate was up
as well. More than 65,000 qualified account holders
received a promotional letter, customized for each
participating credit union, with a detachable check
that the member could use for the balance transfer.
Two credit unions’
performances in the promotion stood out, led by
Jersey Shore Federal Credit Union of Northfield, New
Jersey. Jersey Shore Federal achieved an exceptional
11.68 percent response rate, with an average
transfer check of $5,915. As a result, the credit
union boosted its balances by more than $609,000.
Devon Callan, chief operating
officer for Jersey Shore Federal, credited the
appeal of the offer – with interest rate options
of zero percent or 3.9 percent – and employee
incentives for the outstanding performance.
“We wanted a promotion that
would be supported by employees, so we approached it
from a team concept,” Callan said. Participating
employees were divided into teams, and the overall
goal was set purposely high, Callan explained,
“since we had never offered either a zero percent
or 3.9 percent rate before, and we hoped our members
would respond.”
With a competitive spirit and
cash incentives driving their efforts, employees
helped power Jersey Shore Federal beyond its goals.
"This was the first
promotion we’ve done since we began processing
with TNB in 2004, and the flexibility of being able
to set our own interest rates for our members was a
key component of the promotion’s success,”
Callan noted. “TNB allowed us to determine the
rates that would work for our members. We didn’t
have this type of flexibility from our former
processor, so our past promotions never generated
the level of results we received from this one.”
Smart Financial Credit Union of
Houston, Texas, achieved a 3.51 percent response
rate and an average balance transfer of $4,207,
boosting its balances by $572,000. Those are solid
numbers, but vice president of electronic member
services LeAnn Kaczynski said they didn’t come as
a surprise.
“We hadn’t run a balance
transfer promotion in quite a while, so we weren’t
quite sure what our response would be,” Kaczynski
explained. “We had recently made some changes
to our credit card programs, increasing credit lines
and risk-based pricing our portfolio, so we were
hoping to capitalize on those changes with the
promotion.”
Kaczynski
said the combination of those changes and the
appealing zero percent APR offered on the
transferred balances made the promotion a success at
her credit union.
-t-t-
About TNB Card Services
TNB Card Services, owned and directed by credit
unions since 1976, provides electronic payments
processing, as well as an agent issuing solution for
credit unions nationwide. Serving more than 450
financial institutions and managing more than 1.6
million cards, Dallas-based TNB enables credit
unions to enhance member loyalty through credit
union-branded card products. For more information
about TNB, go to www.tnbcard.com or call
1-888-742-0260.
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