VyStar has a history of conservative management and operation, a focus on providing quality service, a reputation for putting its members first and a commitment to the communities where our members live and work. These things represent good business practices that ensure the strength of your credit union today and in the future.

Credit unions are not for profit cooperate organizations created to bring members together to mutually benefit each other and to help members and their families improve their financial health. Since we were founded in 1952, we have continued to focus on our members and how we might benefit them. Today, VyStar has grown to serve over 356,000 members with assets approaching $4 billion, one of the largest credit unions in the nation out of almost 8,000. We are successful because of our members’ continuing belief in and support of their credit union. Thank you for making your credit union a great success for all our members.

During these challenging economic times, we want to ensure that you know your credit union continues to operate soundly. Our Board and Management have a conservative business philosophy at VyStar and work each day to provide members with the right balance of products and services, when, how and where they want them, and at affordable prices.

VyStar provides members with access to 30 branches, over 150 VyStar ATMs along with ATMs throughout the world, a large Call Center and other delivery systems such as Internet Banking and telephone audio response Magic*Touch. At the same time our wide range of low-cost products and services are designed to meet a variety of needs as your primary financial institution. I am pleased to report that all our systems are strong and functioning well and we continue to make every effort to preserve a mutual and beneficial relationship with our members, who share ownership in their credit union. During the past several months, we have seen regulatory changes being introduced for credit cards in order to protect the consumer – effective in stages during August 2009, and February and July 2010. More than likely, you have received notices from non-VyStar credit card providers who are announcing changes to their cards’ interest rates and fees before the law goes into effect. I strongly urge you to read those notices carefully so you know exactly what to expect from your credit card company. On the front page of this issue, we talk about VyStar’s Visa® Cards and urge you to compare our program details with those of any other cards you own. Regardless of where you have your credit card accounts, and of course we hope it will be with VyStar, we strongly encourage you to review the disclosures and make sure you understand the terms on your credit card accounts. We are finding that many other credit card providers are changing the terms on their card programs and the changes are not always positive for consumers. Please read the fine print.

VyStar too must comply with the new credit card regulations. After evaluating them, we have decided that it is in the best interest of our members to leave all of our current credit cards at a fixed rate, not to be adjustable at this time. We have three credit card options including our Classic Card (13.90% APR), Gold Card (10.90% APR), and Platinum Card (9.90% APR). There are no annual fees or transaction fees with any of our cards. With the economy the way it is, we are trying to avoid charging our members more money. While we will make every effort to keep our rates low, some day when rates eventually increase within the marketplace we may need to move to an adjustable rate program for new purchases – but at this point we don’t believe it is the right move for our members.

We have given our credit card programs very serious thought because we think these decisions are very important for our members.

If your credit cards are from other institutions, I urge you to take a look at the details of your cards and consider switching to VyStar. Getting more business from all of our members helps us grow and offer even better products and services. Members can conveniently apply either by phoning our Call Center, or submitting a loan application while they’re in Internet Banking. It really is an easy process. You can also apply with a VyStar Representative in any VyStar branch office.

Another newsworthy item is that of overdraft protection. Information about this particular service has been all over the news lately with discussions of fees, posting policies, paying overdrafts, and the like. Some other financial institutions will pay the overdrawn item for an additional fee (called “courtesy pay”), and then give the consumer a particular number of days to make up for the negative balance or another fee is charged. VyStar does not do this. Our philosophy is that courtesy pay type of programs can easily get people caught up in a negative cycle where they are paying more fees than their income and balances can reasonably handle. We have evaluated such programs in the past and each time determined that they are not in the best interest of consumers.

VyStar members can make overdraft protection arrangements for their checking account and there is no charge to you when funds are transferred to checking to cover an insufficient balance. Many other financial institutions charge for this service. You can set up your account so that money can be transferred to checking from another deposit account or unsecured line of credit you own at VyStar. If you don’t have sufficient funds in other deposit accounts to cover an insufficient item (bounced check), we also suggest it is much less expensive to use an unsecured line of credit to cover an insufficient item than to use other courtesy pay type overdraft programs that you might read about.

We added a new feature to our Visa® Check Card transactions during August. When funds are used with your debit card (where you press “credit” or sign for the transaction), they are immediately held aside in your account until the transaction clears so you can better monitor your account balance. We are already finding this is helping members have fewer returned items and pay fewer fees for insufficient items. We realize many members do not maintain a check book register and will often look online to see which transactions have not cleared or call Magic*Touch to find out what their balance is. Please remember when viewing or hearing your balance, it will only reflect items that have cleared your account or are pending on your account whether it’s via Internet Banking or Magic*Touch. If you have performed transactions (written checks for example) that have not yet cleared your account, we will not know about those items and the balance reflected may not reflect what you have left to spend. That is why, regardless of how you transact business today, it is still very important to maintain a check book register to keep up with all deposits and transactions on your checking account and to reconcile your checking account on a regular basis. This practice will help you avoid the risk of bouncing checks.

Some of our members have asked about VyStar’s Money Makeover program and what it really means. We started the actual contest this year to provide real life examples to show people how to reduce debt and increase savings. As a financial cooperative, one of our goals is to help our members find ways to save money, reduce debt and become financially more successful. Sometimes that includes thinking more about how you generate income and how you spend it. We felt it might help others if we showed real people trying to evaluate how they spend their money, reduce their debt and save. Sometimes saving money can be quite challenging but if you are more aware of how you spend it, it can make a huge difference. It is so easy to fall into bad spending habits that are hard to change so we wanted to give some examples of what other members have learned that has made a positive difference for them. If you walk into a branch and ask for a Money Makeover, we make it easy for you to review all of your income and expenses. We then can help you see what you can do to improve your situation. While November 30th is the end of our contest, it really is just the beginning for our VyStar members. As your credit union, we want to help you and are ready to go to work just for you.

Stop in any of our branches to get your Money Makeover Guide, and we will assist you in changing the way you look at your money.

Whether we enjoy a good economy or struggle through tough economic conditions, VyStar remains constant and focused on you – our members – in providing more affordable financial services, a safer place to save, better rates and more accessible loans. And, in all the decisions we make, we strive to live up to our statement “we never forget that it’s your money”. Thank you for your cooperative support, for being a valued member of VyStar, and for making your credit union a great success.


Terry R. West, President/CEO

VyStar Credit Union

© 2009 VyStar Credit Union