By Karen Welch — Senior Content Producer
The National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions selected Amarillo's Education Credit Union as the Best Small Credit Union in the United States.
The trade group presented ECU representatives with the award during its recent national conference in Hawaii, ECU President and CEO Gregg Bynum said.
"It means that our peers have recognized our credit union for how we serve our community," he said. "We were recognized for all the programs we do for our community involvement, our support of the community, our loan programs, our creative financing programs, our support of schools.
"Our credit union started in February, 1935 to serve our membership because other financial providers did not want to deal with some depositors and small, unsecured loans. We have won numerous state and local awards the last few years. We even won a couple of national awards for our youth financial education program. But, winning this award, Credit Union of the Year from NAFCU, is an incredible achievement for us."
The Amarillo credit union scored a first, because the award is a new honor for the association to bestow.
Chairman of the Board, Cody Myers called the management and employees of ECU “world class” in friendliness, efficiency, and strategy, which has led to an unbelievable stretch of financial achievement for our members in recent years.”
ECU is in the midst of investing almost $1 million in new mobile technology. That effort includes plans for a redesigned, more mobile-friendly website, and mobile platforms for a number of banking programs, Bynum said.
Karen Welch is a senior content producer for Panhandle PBS. She can be contacted at Karen.Welch@actx.edu, at @KWelch806 on Twitter and at www.facebook.com/karensmithwelch on Facebook.
