Switch to save on your loans

[00:00:00] Thank you for joining us for Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial wellness. Hi everyone out there and thank you for joining us on the show. Today we’re gonna talk about how we can evaluate our debt obligations and find ways to reduce payments, to put a little extra in our pockets or towards savings.
To help us, we’ve got Mel Merge with us today, who’s the product manager in our consumer lending department here at Patelco. Mel helps design products and services here at the credit union, and Patelco prides themselves on providing tools that support financial wellness. Mel, we’re so glad to have you here with us today.
Tell us a little bit about your role and how you ensure that we’re looking out for our members’ wellbeing. Yes, thanks again for having me today. As a product manager, I have the privilege opportunity to design lending products, and programs offering low cost, , flexible loan options, , that meet our members’ budgets.
We do this by leveraging a key component of our lending program, [00:01:00] our Switch to Save initiative, when compared to industry averages. Our lending products typically have lower interest rates, saving our members money monthly, and throughout the duration of their loan. In 2024, we saved members an estimated $6.9 million in interest when they consolidated debt into a low rate personal loan or took advantage of our 0% no fee balance transfer offer.
That’s so incredible. Now, Mel, you used to work at the branch helping members directly in at the branch level, right? Yeah, spent about 20 years in retail banking. Wow. So in that time, did we have the Switch to Save program and tell us a little bit more about that program. Yeah, so Switch To Save is a longstanding program here at Patelco.
Ultimately what we do, as a credit union as a not-for-profit organization, we are able to provide lower rates across our products, compared to, you know, the traditional big banks. Yeah. So when a member comes in and we start, you know, having needs-based conversations and understanding, the type of debt they’re carrying elsewhere, we’re able to make [00:02:00] recommendations, and have them switch to save to our Patelco products.
And help lower their monthly payments, reduce their interest over time, and really just be there for them as, as a partner. Yeah. And my team’s out in the community and we talking with. Prospects and members all the time, and they just, they just don’t know that we, our rates tend to be better and that the refinance process is easier and that they could easily save money with, you know, an application or two and a little bit of education.
So that’s so great to know about our Switch to Save initiative. All right, Mel. It’s April, 2025. Things are tough right now. Our members are really feeling it. Rooters just released some consumer confidence statistics stating that US con consumer confidence plunged to the lowest level in more than four years last month.
That’s surprising to you? No, it’s not surprising at all. So they also say that households are fearing a recession in the future and even higher inflation due to tariffs. The conference board said that write in responses to that survey. Showed worries about the impact of trade [00:03:00] policies and tariffs in particular, those are on the rise, as well as references to economic and policy uncertainty.
So, you know, at Patelco we’ve been having endless conversations, right, about how we can support our members right now. , The Switch to Save program is a great way to, . Help our members just understand what options they have. But talk to us about, , cars and auto refinance or a cash out refi as a way to save money right now.
Yes, most definitely. Our, our cash out auto refinance is definitely an underutilized, , product and loan service that we offer here at Patelco., Most, most consumers probably associate this with title loans and, you know, those really high rates and, you know, those, those buildings and strip malls.
However, our, our version of the Cashout Auto, really has a great low rate. And payment option for our members when we compare those to standard, consolidation and personal loans. Members can use the funds for whatever they want, to pay off high interest [00:04:00] debt, and they can borrow up to a hundred percent of the value of their auto loan.
There’s no prepayment penalties and the, one of the cool things is we’ve added older models to our program. Oh, nice. So members who have older cars, ’cause right now it’s really expensive to buy a new car. Mm-hmm. They’re maintaining their older vehicles for much longer. We can finance up to 15 years old.
Okay. Amazing. I don’t think most people know that. I think at other institutions too. It’s up to maybe seven or eight years old, so up to 15 years old is a big deal. All right. Well, what about looking at our lines of credit and exploring either a balance transfer on a credit card or potentially a home equity line of credit as a means to save money?
Yeah, right now it’s definitely a great time for homeowners to look into getting a home equity line of credit. Members can visit our website@patelco.org and use the check my rate to receive an instant prequalification with no impact to their credit. Our HELOC has no application fee, no prepayment penalty, no annual fee.
Members can use the funds for home [00:05:00] improvements, debt consolidations, large purchases, or any other expense that may come up. And payments are only interest only, and it’s only against the amount that they borrow so that health keeps the payment down. Yeah. That’s so great to know. I think sometimes we forget about our cars as being assets and something that we can borrow against.
And what’s a car loan rate and a HELOC rate against a personal loan rate, say, generally speaking. So the lowest rate we can get on a personal loan is around 10%, and a car HELOC is around six to eight. Yeah, that’s about right. So depending on, you know, the, you know, your credit score. Yeah. And what, and the different ranges.
You know, HELOC and, and a personal and auto loan rate are definitely lower than, than a personal loan. Yeah. Something to consider folks. Great info there, Mel. Alright. Talk to us about our great auto loan rates in general. What’s the process to refinance a vehicle here at Patelco? I went through this this summer and it was so easy.
Share. Yeah. I, I highly recommend our members leverage our auto loan switch to Safe Calculator, [00:06:00] which is located on the website, on our auto loans page. , And they can compare what they currently have. And by switching their auto loan to Patelco, all they would need is their current rate, their monthly payment and balance to see the potential savings.
Once they see the difference, they can apply directly on the website, or if they prefer to speak with someone, they can visit our virtual branch team or they can visit a local branch. Okay. Really cool. So you’re recommending that, members have their statements handy so they can have that conversation?
Yeah, that definitely helps with, with when, with completing that switch to save calculator. Yeah. And why not? If we’re talking half a percent, 1%, maybe even 2% savings on your auto loan rate and your monthly payment, that could make a big impact on your monthly budget, your savings. So these are all great ways to kind of reevaluate your loan commitments and potentially save some money.
Mel, any last wisdom to share with our listeners? Yeah, we’re gonna be talking about Switch to save a lot these upcoming months. So members will definitely see this message, in their [00:07:00] statements when they visit the ATM, they visit a branch. It’s gonna be everywhere. So we wanna make sure that members understand the opportunity that they have to make a switch to save from whatever product they have, whether it’s their equity, their home loan, personal loans, credit cards, and they could switch over to us on top of the, the switch save messaging that they’re gonna be seeing more often.
We’re gonna have two great promotions that are actually already live now. For auto loans, for members who wanna switch to save their auto with us, we’re gonna give them a 0.25% discount on top of our already loan rates, and that’s running through June 30th. And for those who want to take advantage of our home equity, we’re gonna have a 6.49% a PR for the first six billing cycles, and that’s valid for any California homeowner through June 30th as well.
Okay. Awesome. So, switch to save to me kind of sounds like a co like reviving switch to save for us, kind of sounds like Jimmy Butler, helping revive the Warriors. Would you, is that a fair comparison? That’s absolutely a fair comparison. We love Jimmy. All [00:08:00] right, so check out our awesome rates on patelco.org.
You can also find more information about the Switch to Save program by going to patelco.org/switch. There you can find these calculators that Mel’s talking about, along with rate information and other financial education around credit cards. He HELOC auto and personal loans. , If you wanna talk with somebody about refinancing, you can speak with one of our certified financial specialists at one of our branches or our virtual branch, and they can help you review options and going through the refinance process.
Or come visit us at one of our 36 branch locations. We have CFSs available in branch again and through virtual branch. Mel, we wanna thank you so much for being with us today and sharing. Absolutely. It’s always a pleasure. Thank you. All right, folks. Well that’s gonna do it for today on small Talks for a big change where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial wellness.
Stay well out there, everyone. We’ll see you next [00:09:00] time. Patelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA,