| COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Operation Opportunity How Virtual Teller Machines Are Making an Impact
A $300,000 grant and $1.7 million loan secured through a 2016 Opportunity Finance Network NEXT Award are helping Appalachian Community Federal Credit Union deploy virtual teller machines (VTMs) in three underserved, rural areas in Appalachia. This article looks at and behind the numbers. BY JEFF KEELING APPALACHIAN COMMUNITY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
Joanne Richardson is talking to a machine. It’s a Friday morning and Richardson, who works at the Owsley County, Ky. library, stands in a sparsely furnished office in Booneville. Three hours and 20 minutes away by car, Appalachian Community Federal Credit Union (ACFCU) Member Communications staffer Mercedes Hill sits in a cubicle with a dual screen computer and headset. Richardson and Hill can see and hear each other and conduct nearly all the
business they could if just two feet of space and a teller line counter separated them, rather than nearly 200 miles. A new virtual teller machine (VTM) is bringing the benefits of a branch to a county with just one bank. That fact – and some others that set ACFCU apart as a socially responsible financial cooperative – has brought Richardson into the ACFCU fold. She learned about ACFCU through Sue Christian, a family engagement specialist with Berea College’s “Promise Neighborhood” program whose office houses the VTM. The credit union has helped Christian’s program broaden its scope to financial literacy, providing workshops and drawing the inter-
est of people such as Richardson. “Most people that are like me, that live paycheck to paycheck, have started using prepaid Visa debit cards and not using a bank at all,” Richardson said. “That’s how I pay everything.” Or was. Richardson said she’s looking forward to ACFCU’s financial counseling, but also to the benefit of a full-service financial institution. “NOT THAT MUCH MEAT ON THE BONE” Paydays in Owsley County can have a different look than paydays in most of the United States. The surface coal mining that drove the economy in the county (population 4,461), where Booneville is the seat, largely dried up some years ago. The school system and a nursing home are primary employers. Government benefits comprise more than half of personal income in what is the nation’s third-poorest county. Twice as many people lived here in 1940 than do today. More than half of Owsley County children live beneath the poverty line. Half the county’s households live on less than $21,000 a year (the national figure is nearly $56,000). ACFCU MEMBER COMMUNICATIONS REPRESENTATIVE MERCEDES HILL INTERACTS WITH BOONEVILLE, KY. RESIDENT AND ACFCU MEMBER JOANNE RICHARDSON VIA VIRTUAL TELLER TECHNOLOGY.
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