Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 12

87 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 12 SELFREL I ANCE FEDERAL CREDI T UNION therefore Ukrainian heritage and traditions form the common bond of association among our members,” Tun explains. “But, really, membership is open to everyone, regardless of ancestry, as long as they agree with the general premise we put forward: that’s helping people and promoting knowledge of cultures, particularly Ukrainian culture.” As pretty much everywhere else, COVID-19 had a profound effect on Selfreliance’s 2020 plans and many intended projects were delayed as resources were reallocated to deal with the pandemic. At the same time, the situation presented new opportunities for the credit union, such as participating in the SBA Paycheck Protection Program and shifting more attention towards digital media platforms. “We’d been pushing more to digital banking, just coincidentally, for the last few years,” Tun discloses. “COVID-19 definitely sped up that transition, but we already had the mechanisms in place to deliver those kinds of service innovations. We implemented a digital banking system from Tyfone which provided a more robust digital banking suite than what we had in the past. This was all in place when most of us – those in marketing and other departments that weren’t front-facing – were working remotely at the start of the pandemic.” As Tun remembers it, the institution really began pushing digital account access and, staying true to their member-focused mission, encouraging members to get in touch if they were experiencing financial hardship. “We waived over $100,000 in fees during the first few months of the pandemic,” he recalls. “We did what we could for the organizations to which our members belong by becoming a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) lender for the Small Business Association (SBA). We were able to execute $3.7 million in PPP loans to small businesses and such, at a time when bigger banks were doing the same. They were doing the same, but they Oleh Karawan, Chairman of the Board