The Amherst Credit Union Team formula for success is a simple one, but implementing it requires dedication from both Amherst professionals and our credit union partners. It is best summed up as:
Customization + Personalization = Optimization
Our partners are forward-looking credit union professionals who have agreed to make a significant upstream investment of their time and expertise to fulfilling a mutual goal. Amherst, in turn, invests the time and expertise needed to acquire a profound knowledge of the unique investment needs of the credit union partner. To this, we bring our keen understanding of the financial markets and overall knowledge of the credit union industry.
Credit union officials must continually improve and expand their products and services to members, adopt new technologies, and endeavor to anticipate economic trends that will affect a CU’s performance. The Amherst CU Team is similarly dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in our own field. We understand the growing importance of a well-positioned, responsive portfolio.
We provide our credit union partners with a customized program designed to position the credit union’s portfolio for the best possible performance. We make our services concise and comprehensible. We’ll give you:
Clear, Timely Updates and Reports
We update our partners on NCUA and appropriate agency rules and regulations and/or changes in order to keep them informed of new developments. We provide insight as to how these changes may affect a portfolio’s structure and expectations, both short-term and long-term, and offer solutions.
A Partner Relations Coordinator
As a partner in the success of the credit unions we serve, Amherst believes in acquiring a profound knowledge of these CUs. This means, quite simply, that in order to be an effective component of your organization, we need a detailed, deep and enlightened understanding of your credit union, your membership, your management and your investment directives. We believe that profound knowledge is directly connected to our success, through the success of our partners.
Amherst assigns a Partner Relations Coordinator to each partner CU. This liaison is deeply involved in the workings of our relationship and ensures that all team members act on behalf of the CU partner.
Partner Education & Training
Optimal performance of a CU’s portfolio requires a confluence of diverse skills: An in-depth knowledge of the current institutional market environment, up-to-the-minute understanding of pertinent rules and regulations, and expertise with analytical software tools and strategic planning and project management skills. Rarely is a CU fortunate enough to find all of this ongoing subject matter expertise among its board and staff. That’s why focused board and committee education is crucial to supplying and maintaining the necessary material to make sound investment policy decisions. Amherst makes it easy for our partners to stay abreast of these changing conditions by providing annual training sessions and coaching in specific areas requested by the individual CU partner. (To learn more about these educational training options, please visit our Partner Education & Training page).
The Amherst Team takes a holistic approach to the partner relationship. We recognize that all of the diverse skills necessary for optimization are equally important, interrelated and inseparable. Our partner training & education component is a tripartite initiative designed to supplement the skills of staff and board, enhance the skill sets of our partners and thus enable the CU partner to make more confident, informed business decisions.
The Human Factor
Performance Measures and trend information can help the Amherst Team and our CU partners in their decision-making process. But pure analysis is no substitute for experience and intuition.
There are dangers to over-reliance on data, just as there are dangers to relying solely on experience and intuition (as in, “This is what worked last time, so let’s do it again.”) and ignoring performance measure data. "Gut feeling" and "seat of the pants" decisions can lead to disastrous consequences. Amherst’s seasoned professionals balance data analysis results with experience and intuition. This is not arbitrary. We “get” the bond market, just as our CU partners “get” the credit union landscape, and historical cycles and trends have much to teach us all. But we also understand and respect the power of verifiable, repeatable data. In the final analysis, wisdom is found in finding the proper balance. At Amherst, we seek to find that balance for our CU Partners.