Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee, for having us here today to speak on behalf of First West Credit Union and our efforts to support our members through COVID-19.
As you've heard, my name is Shelley Besse and I'm the chief credit officer. With me is Kendall Gross. Kendall is the president of our Island Savings division.
I'll share some remarks, and then we'll both be available to answer any questions the committee might have.
First West is British Columbia's third-largest credit union, with more than $14 billion in assets, 250,000 members and approximately 1,250 employees, operating under the trade names Envision Financial, Valley First, Island Savings and Enderby & District. We are provincially regulated but are in the process of becoming a federally regulated credit union.
As part of our federal journey, we already had efforts under way to build up liquidity, increase capital, improve our operational processes and invest in digital technologies. This positioned First West well as we entered into the pandemic. This work, combined with our commitment to provide advice-driven conversations to our members, meant that we could be proactive at a time when our members needed us most.
We knew the impacts of the pandemic would be felt by our members immediately and we wanted to be there to help. To do this, we compiled and analyzed data to assess who might be most in need of support and created what we call internally the “COVID index”. Using this insight and other information, we proactively called thousands of members to offer assistance and ongoing check-ins following the first tranche of support. Through our approach, we provided members with payment deferrals in three-month increments, instead of six at the start, and advice on an individual case-by-case basis.
At the height of the pandemic, approximately 15% of our retail loan portfolio was in deferred status. Today, I am pleased to share that it is 0.02%. We attribute this success to our approach. In fact, recent reports by Canada Guaranty noted that institutions that provided incremental and shorter deferral periods saw members resume payments faster, which ultimately is a good thing for members.
How are our members doing today? In December, we reached out to several of our members whom we identified as most vulnerable, and we were thrilled to hear that 79% said they did not need further assistance.
At First West, we have approximately 20,000 business members. At a high, during the spring and summer of 2020, just over 24% of our business loan portfolio was in deferred status. As of March, we have no business members with a current deferral.
While I can't say it won't happen in the future, at present I am not aware of a single First West business member that has failed due to the pandemic. In fact, 69% of respondents to a survey of our membership in February said they probably or definitely had sufficient cash flow or cash reserves to operate and meet obligations over the next six months, and 85% of respondents said their business would definitely or probably survive COVID.
I'd like to take just a moment now to share our community outreach.
First West knew that British Columbians would be needing assistance more than normal, so we quickly disbursed hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of food banks via our “Feed the Valley” and “The Full Cupboard” programs, and to non-profit organizations facing economic challenges.
We recognized that many donations are made to specific events and programs, but in compliance with health orders, these events were often cancelled. Our community partners needed funding just to keep their doors open, which is why we made our funding unrestricted.
To wrap up, I want to come back to First West's pursuit of being federally regulated. We were asked to present to this committee because we embarked on a different outreach approach that has served our members well. We believe that Canadians should have a choice in their financial institution and that different approaches create better results and drive innovation.
Credit unions and the Canadian Credit Union Association played an important role during the consultations with government and its partners and in administering COVID relief programs. I thank the government and urge this committee to continue the collaboration.
We are happy to answer any questions or provide any more details on our COVID-19 response.
Thank you.