SAN DIEGO, Calif.-- CU Revest is reporting that in just two short years it has recovered more than $1 million in forgotten “abandoned capital” from 1,600 “prior-prime” credit union members. CU Revest is not a collection agency, but instead said it a multiple-credit union owned asset-management CUSO with a member-centric philosophy.
The company said its model has demonstrated an irony: the older the charge off, the better the chances are of recovery. Why? CU Revest reported that “good people get back on their feet, even if it takes several years. But, there’s a Catch-22. The credit union must have the technology to know precisely who to reach out to and when to make contact before the account becomes time-barred by federal statute.”
CU Revest was introduced two credit unions in 2013 during NACUSO’s “Next Big Idea Competition” by CEO Mike Joplin, CEO of CU Revest, who unveiled a unique business model designed to restore abandoned credit union capital and recover valuable credit union members. “Abandoned capital and banished prior-prime members are an untapped source of growth.” Both, he said, can be “revested,” or vested again, in their credit union.
“Credit unions and their collection agencies simply do not have the internal resources to convert four, five or even six-year-old charge-offs to positive assets. Under regulatory pressure, credit unions must focus available resources on loss mitigation and early stage loss recovery,” said CU Revest in a statement. “Collection agencies focus their sights on the low-hanging fruit of newly assigned portfolios from their multiple clients and do not have the resources or the technology to efficiently or effectively mine older portfolios. In other words, for years it has been believed that old charge offs are just too expensive to collect.”
CU Revest said it has the technology with a patent-pending predictive analytics model that was launched in 1997 and which is built on the repayment attributes of more than one-million borrowers and $3-billion in debt under management. “Using behind the scenes triggers set with all credit reporting agencies and lifestyle attributes that go beyond FCRA reporting requirements, CU Revest’s model is accurate to within one standard deviation and re-educates itself daily as additional consumer data is run through the model,” the company said. “Armed with these analytics, CU Revest has, in two short years, recovered more than $1-million in forgotten, abandoned capital and 1,600 prior-prime credit union members.”
CURevest said that its member-centered philosophy recognizes that most Americans, financial crisis is a temporary setback, but the negative, life-changing effects can last for several years.
“Knowing when and how to contact a charged off, prior-prime member with dignity and respect is critical to the success of a loss recovery program,” CU Revest said. “This philosophy goes to the very roots of the credit union movement: people helping people. If a financial crisis is temporary, is a lifetime ban appropriate? Put another way, if a prior-prime member has gotten past the financial crisis that caused a charge off and is willing to repay the credit union 100% of the amount charged off, should not that member be given a second chance? In many cases the answer is “yes”. After all, isn’t that what credit unions are all about?”
CU Revest is a CUSO owned in part by Kinecta FCU, Desert Schools FCU, ORNL FCU, and GTE Financial Credit Union.
For info: www.curevest.com. A video about CU Revest can be found here.