Worcester Business Journal

www.wbjournal.com February 15, 2016 • Worcester Business Journal 11 Congratulations to our client Worcester Pro Hockey HC and the City of Worcester on landing the newest East Coast Hockey League team! Based at the DCU Center in Worcester, the new team will celebrate its inaugural season in October of 2017, joining the 28 current ECHL teams located across the United States and in Canada. We are proud to have played a role in bringing hockey back to Central Massachusetts and encourage the entire business community to support this important addition to our city. Bowditch.com WorcesterProHockey.com area, there is a touch-screen television, which allows presenters to make notes on slides as they go. The screen is also compatible with iPads, which can be used to demo services like mobile check deposits. Within the next few months, McCarthy said he hopes to hold an introduction to credit seminar and class- es on home buying, basic banking and scam prevention for the elderly. DCU plans to remodel its Littleton branch in a similar way this summer. What DCU is doing is a step in the right direction towards people making better informed financial decisions, Gentile said. "They're on the lead of an emerging trend, now more and more people are trying to take that community education approach," Gentile said. "They should really be credited for investing in the community there, it's an investment in the community. I would hope to see more of that as we move forward – that's what we need." Industry-wide effort Other credit unions are committed to expanding financial literacy. Seven years ago, Ingrid Adade was the manager of the Clinton High School branch of Leominster Credit Union. After the recession hit, Adade said she was inun- dated with questions about money man- agement from students. "They didn't know what a recession was – they had studied about a depres- sion in history class – the school was small enough … [they would ask], 'What is a recession?' 'What is a foreclosure?' 'Is it true that your electricity should get turned off or disconnected every month or every other month?'" Adade said. "It's just more or less students trusted us to be able to ask those questions." Realizing a need for better financial education in the schools, Adade went to the superintendent and drew up a cur- riculum for an accredited financial lit- eracy class. Today this class is offered at Clinton High School and at Wachusett Regional High School, where Leominster Credit Union also has a branch. Interested students can take the class as a prerequisite to a summer internship at one of the on-campus branches. Worcester Credit Union has a similar partnership with Worcester Technical High School. Since opening its branch at the high school 10 years ago, the credit union has trained more than 100 stu- dents, taken about 25 percent of them as part-timers and hired five students as permanent employees. Student tellers have become Worcester Credit Union's primary source of new employee tellers, said Karen Duffy, the credit union's presi- dent and CEO. Duffy said financial lit- eracy should be a high school gradua- tion requirement. "Financial literacy is a popular topic in banking and in education today, and it really refers to exposing young people and unbanked populations to the ben- efits of using basic, no-fee bank accounts and services as opposed to using alternatives like check cashing stores, which charge high fees," she said. At LCU, Adade is now the de-facto financial literacy specialist, and travels throughout Central Massachusetts to work with everyone from pre-kinder- garteners to college students to senior citizens on how to manage their money. "Financial literacy and education really has become sort of our main cause in working with our community," said Janet Belsky, vice president of mar- keting at LCU. "An educated public really has the best opportunity for suc- cess. We want to make sure we help people get there." Spreading awareness Even though financial literacy gaps exist, there are a lot of programs in place across Massachusetts, meaning part of the challenge of improving access is letting people know what's already out there, the state's study said. The study recommended expanding awareness of certain existing tools, such as the Massachusetts Community Banking Council's Basic Banking Tool, which identifies state-chartered banks with low-cost banking products. It also recommended working with the Office of Refugees and Immigrants to make it easier for immigrants to understand the complex banking system in the U.S. When McCarthy's new branch opened, he visited the Walmart next door to introduce himself to the man- agement. During his visit, he was sur- prised to see about 75 percent of people in line for customer service were there to do their banking, he said. "We need to make sure people can do banking and build credit," he said. "Our goal is to help people." n Digital Federal Credit Union opened its first education-centric branch in Worcester, because demand at its two other branches in the city was very high.

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