The Value of Notice Printing

Notices that arrive in a timely fashion can be vital for members who receive them, especially those who rely on paper documents. Many credit unions consider notice printing busy work, usually for a junior teller when the branch is empty. These notices are printed on an in-house printer and manually stuffed into envelopes, affixed with postage, a placed in the outgoing mail.

Basically, notices are triggered events within the core processing system. In computing terms, a notice is an "if-then" statement. Somehow, somewhere, a transaction occurred that initiated an actionable event on a member's account. It could be as important as a negative balance or the maturity of an IRA CD. Whatever the case, the member needs to know what is going on with their account.

Why print at all?

Despite how hard the industry pushes paperless technology, many credit union members still value printed documents. These members may have been with the credit union for decades yet still balance their accounts monthly based on printed statements. No matter how we try to push e-statements and e-notices, these members still use their tried-and-true pen, paper, and calculator. Inclusion is one trait of the industry; a credit union should strive to serve its members no matter how tech-savvy they are.

What notices should I print?

There are many possibilities when it comes to the types of notices that a core banking system can print. Determining which notices to print can dramatically affect the financial well-being of the membership.

Notices can be broken down into three very broad categories: things you don't have, events that occur, and things that change.

"Things that you don't have" usually revolve around money. If you don't have enough money in your account, notices such as insufficient funds, overdrafts, negative balances, partial AFTs, and safe deposit delinquencies can be generated.

"Events that occur" include service fees, stop payments, loan maturities, dormancy fees, loan payments, lock-outs from too many attempts to access audio banking, and Reg D transaction counts.

"Things that change" could be variable interest rate changes, closing base accounts, closing account suffixes, contact information changes, new memberships, and evolving memberships. 

In-house or a commercial printer?

This is a great question that is very dependent on credit union size, staffing, and available work hours. For instance, a small, "close-seg" credit union with membership under a thousand and generally high account balances would probably not see a huge demand for printed notices. Printing on the branch printer and stuffing the few notices you incur each day would probably be a sound decision. 

On the contrary, a large, community credit union with multiple branches and tens of thousands of members would be better served by a commercial printer, preferably with access to the core. If your print shop has core processor access, the steps of generating, exporting, and uploading PDFs can be eliminated on the credit union side.

How much is a commercial printer?

Commercial printers can realize significant savings for credit unions. This is due to three specific strategies: purchasing paper stock in large quantities, the use of automation to produce mail and accessing the lower cost of bulk mail rates. Over the course of a year, credit unions that use a commercial printer can realize substantial savings over producing notices in-house.

A second chance at marketing

Each notice that is sent is a chance for the credit union to reach out to members. Promotional materials can also be inserted into notices that can benefit the member. A good example is to insert a buck slip promoting overdraft protection into insufficient funds notices.

Our perspective

At ESP, we decided to provide printing and mailing services was a great way to empower credit unions. As we view it, the time staff spends on printing, stuffing envelopes, and running to the post office could be better spent on training and customer service. Plus, there are the associated costs and hassle of maintaining stock levels of paper, envelopes, and stamps to factor in. Moving notice printing outside the credit union can positively affect the bottom line.

We are ready to serve your printing needs, and that includes Notices.