NEW YORK—The National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions (Federation) and Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners (NTFP) have launched Pathways to Financial Empowerment, a new initiative to support financial counseling in credit unions serving low-income consumers.
MetLife Foundation is the lead sponsor, supported also by a seed grant from NYSE Euronext Foundation.
Through the Pathways to Financial Empowerment Initiative, the Federation and NTFP will identify five credit unions to participate in a pilot to provide one-on-one financial counseling, integrated with product delivery and supported by an outcome tracking platform, the Federation stated in a release. “The financial counseling model used in the initiative will draw upon NTFP's expertise in counseling and their success in banking the underbanked, reducing member debt and improving credit scores.”
Participating credit unions will be eligible for $20,000 in grants to pilot the Initiative in their communities.
"The Federation is grateful for the support from MetLife Foundation to expand one-on-one financial counseling among low-income consumers,” said Federation President and CEO Cathie Mahon. “Financial counseling is a proven method for increasing the financial stability of low-income consumers who may be dealing with uneven cash flows and challenged or no credit history. This pilot will help us determine how best to deliver and track counseling outcomes through a diverse pool of participating credit unions."
"I am thrilled that Neighborhood Trust is joining together with the Federation to work on this exciting project,” said Justine Zinkin, CEO of NTFP. “Together we will exhibit one more way to make CDCUs even more responsive to their members' and communities' needs and generate a data set that demonstrates the case for integrated financial counseling as smart credit union economics."