Here’s How You Can Negotiate with Your Creditors
If you’ve been paying attention to financial news of late then you’ve probably already heard about the impending merger between LA Financial Credit Union and Ventura County Credit Union. The huge merger will ultimately create a mega credit union that controls $1.3 billion in assets and which serves around 120,000 members across two states (California and Arizona).
Due to be complete by early 2020, the merger between the two credit unions will allow LA Financial to retain its name while becoming a division of Ventura County. The same is true of Havasu Community Credit Union, which is an LA Financial division but which will switch to being a Ventura County division while still retaining its name.
This is big news in the credit union industry, and its implications will be felt far outside the United States. But here, we want to focus more on what it means for people who have their money invested in one of the credit unions. And if you’re thinking about getting involved, or if you need to borrow a little money from them, this will help with that, too.
Negotiating with Your Creditors
One of the most interesting ways in which this merger could help you to negotiate with your creditors is the fact that suddenly a larger amount of resources is available to each credit union. Once the merger has gone through and they’re officially a single entity, they’ll also be looking to grow at scale, and one of the best ways for credit unions to grow is to reinvest in providing loans to customers.
You may also be able to ask creditors for extensions on any deadlines that you have if the merger is affecting access to your funds or causing unexpected delays, or you can seek help from any of the IVA companies around.
Of course, a good option will be to use the individual voluntary arrangement (IVA), which is essentially an alternative to bankruptcy in which you agree to pay off a certain amount of debt each month until you’re able to get back in the black. If you’re interested in taking out an IVA, check out some reputable IVA websites for more knowledge.
Another alternative is to work with Stop Bailiffs, who have a good working knowledge of the upcoming merger. Just make sure that you don’t try to use it as an excuse if there’s no legitimate cause for the delays, because you can bet that your creditors will have one eye on the finance industry too.
But with a bit of luck, it won’t come to that, and you’ll be able to pay off your creditors by managing your money more effectively or even by borrowing some money from your credit union. Once this merger goes through, you can bet that Ventura County will continue to grow and so will each of the credit unions which will now fall under their umbrella. This is good news if you’re investing your money with them, and it’s also good news if you’re looking to borrow.
Conclusion
The impending merger between LA Financial Credit Union and Ventura County Credit Union has major ramifications for people across the board, from small investors to local companies and even the wider financial community as a whole. That’s because the industry responds to itself, and this merger could easily be the first in a whole series of mergers that could have a much bigger impact.
As for what this means for you, it really depends. If you have money invested with one of the credit unions, your money should be safe and you may even find that the merger pays dividends if the two credit unions come out stronger. If you don’t have money invested with them, you may want to hold back just to keep an eye on how it goes, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on it as a potential investment.
That’s especially true because of the unique way in which credit unions operate, effectively providing an alternative to traditional banks. It’s no surprise that credit unions are thriving, and this merger is just another sign of how effective they can be in today’s uncertain financial and political environment. Perhaps it’s time that you made credit unions part of your strategy for managing your money. Good luck.
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.