Brett Christensen describes the difference between a co-signor and a co-applicant. It's never enjoyable being the bearer of bad news. Nevertheless, Brett Christensen suggests that being direct and positive can make communicating a loan denial a little easier. Christensen, owner of CU Lending Advice, is leading CUES School of Consumer Lending near Chicago this week. During the session, he offered these five tips for talking with members when the news about their loan application is not what they were hoping:

Document management systems help credit unions cut paper costs while delivering better member service. After choosing a solution, you need to make sure you implement it successfully. 

You can do both by following these five easy steps:

If your existing branch is well situated geographically but out of date--or if you just inherited a bunch of older branches through a merger--you might want to renovate these locations to make them on brand and more efficient.