Jose Garcia describes his credit union’s experience serving small business owners as a “top priority.”

Garcia is the business services manager at $8.9 billion asset Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union in Live Oak, Texas. The credit union has been serving small businesses since 2005, but when a previous merchant provider was falling short, it was time to shop around.

Other credit unions in Colorado and Florida recommended Newtek Business Service Corp., a CUNA Strategic Services alliance provider, which ultimately brought a major boost to Randolph Brooks’ business services program. The credit union signed up for Newtek’s referral program, which provides a fee for referring business to Newtek.

“We were with another vendor for about eight years, and our total number of closes with them was about 360, and revenue was about $3,500 per month,” says Garcia. “Switching to Newtek did mean we had to start from scratch and we lost the revenue we were getting from our previous vendor.

“But we implemented Newtek’s services to our business members in May 2014 and were able to replace the previous vendor’s revenue within two years,” he continues. “We have 1,511 businesses signed up with Newtek and have earned approximately $194,000 in total revenue to the credit union as of July 2018.”

Newtek’s referral program offers a suite of services, including:

• Human resources, payroll, and benefits.
• Merchant processing.
• Managed technology.
• Personal and commercial insurance.
• Business lending.
• Website design/development/hosting.

Each credit union chooses which services it wants to offer to members—from one service to the entire suite.*

It isn’t only the revenue and suite of services that pleases Randolph-Brooks Federal, but also the quality of service to the credit union and their small business members.

“Newtek has been a great partner of the credit union since our first day of implementation,” says Garcia. “They’re always willing to help our efforts in cross-serving business members to use their products and services, and provide various marketing materials, proactively schedule conference calls, and visit to address anything we need.”

“However, what I like most about them is that they always make things right—even when they’re not at fault, and they keep our members’ best interests in mind at all times,” he adds. “We take care of our members and Newtek does that with us—they make it right. You hear that phrase: ‘The customer is always right.’ Newtek lives it.”

* Credit unions receive a one-time referral fee or an ongoing revenue share, depending on the specific service. They can begin offering business services to members quickly, with no up-front investment in additional staff or infrastructure. Newtek provides marketing and training support for each credit union, and NewTracker™, an online referral system, allows credit union staff to enter and track the status of member referrals online, 24/7.