TNB Card Services Clients Gain More than $5 Million in Fall Balance Transfer Promotion

Thirty-one TNB Card Services credit union clients reaped the benefits of a pre-holiday balance transfer promotion, gaining well over $5 million in balances. TNB today announced the results of its annual fall promotion, which ran from September through November 2005.

The promotion was even more effective than the fall 2004 promotion, both in its response rate and the average balance transferred, said Glen Lee, first senior vice president of TNB Card Services.

“The combination of attractive interest rates on the balances transferred and effective marketing made this promotion a huge success,” Lee said. “It yielded the highest average balance transfer we’ve ever seen, over $3,500 per account. Clearly, the timing was right, as people moved these balances off competing high-interest rate cards onto their credit union cards before the Christmas shopping season shifted into high gear.”

The average balance transferred per account was more than 15 percent higher than the 2004 promotion and the overall response rate was up as well. More than 65,000 qualified account holders received a promotional letter, customized for each participating credit union, with a detachable check that the member could use for the balance transfer.

Two credit unions’ performances in the promotion stood out, led by Jersey Shore Federal Credit Union of Northfield, New Jersey. Jersey Shore Federal achieved an exceptional 11.68 percent response rate, with an average transfer check of $5,915. As a result, the credit union boosted its balances by more than $609,000.

Devon Callan, chief operating officer for Jersey Shore Federal, credited the appeal of the offer ? with interest rate options of zero percent or 3.9 percent ? and employee incentives for the outstanding performance.

“We wanted a promotion that would be supported by employees, so we approached it from a team concept,” Callan said. Participating employees were divided into teams, and the overall goal was set purposely high, Callan explained, “since we had never offered either a zero percent or 3.9 percent rate before, and we hoped our members would respond.”

With a competitive spirit and cash incentives driving their efforts, employees helped power Jersey Shore Federal beyond its goals.

“This was the first promotion we’ve done since we began processing with TNB in 2004, and the flexibility of being able to set our own interest rates for our members was a key component of the promotion’s success,” Callan noted. “TNB allowed us to determine the rates that would work for our members. We didn’t have this type of flexibility from our former processor, so our past promotions never generated the level of results we received from this one.”

Smart Financial Credit Union of Houston, Texas, achieved a 3.51 percent response rate and an average balance transfer of $4,207, boosting its balances by $572,000. Those are solid numbers, but vice president of electronic member services LeAnn Kaczynski said they didn?t come as a surprise.

“We hadn’t run a balance transfer promotion in quite a while, so we weren’t quite sure what our response would be,” Kaczynski explained. “We had recently made some changes to our credit card programs, increasing credit lines and risk-based pricing our portfolio, so we were hoping to capitalize on those changes with the promotion.”

Kaczynski said the combination of those changes and the appealing zero percent APR offered on the transferred balances made the promotion a success at her credit union.