Business View Magazine | July 2020

39 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2020 ALL I ANT CREDI T UNION high financial benefit rests on having very low operating costs. Having served a nationwide membership because of the United Airlines’ footprint, Alliant had few branches and a limited transaction set (no cash operations). Throughout the years, most members accessed the credit union via phone and mail and more recently through online and mobile banking and ATMs. The firm’s costs for much of its history were about a third of the typical bank or credit union’s cost for a like-sized assets institution. And that translated to very high financial value. Mooney explains, “It was an easy sell to employers and others because we could demonstrate that we could offer their employees or members a financial deal that they couldn’t get anywhere else. This was around 2003, when we began to diversify and look for partnerships with other, typically larger, companies. Often those with more disbursed operations where they didn’t care if we had a dense branch network. While United was our legacy sponsor, only about eight percent of our members are United employees, today. And we also have partnerships with Google, Kaiser Permanente, Aetna, BASF, the Chicago Bar Association, the California Association of CPAs, and a number of other relatively large and nationally disbursed companies and membership associations.” Over time, that wholesale model has been supplemented, and to some extent exceeded, in terms of how new members are acquired by word of mouth. Today, 60 percent of Alliant’s new business comes through referrals from existing members and favorable mentions in financial media, websites and blogs. Some great examples: Named as Bankrate’s and MONEY Magazine’s Best Credit Union of 2019; MyBankTracker’s Best Credit Union of 2020; NerdWallet’s Best Banks 2019 and Best Bank for Online Experience of 2020. High marks given in those reviews generates a good amount of new business for Alliant.