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Allen Amadin
Allen Amadin
President and CEO, American Consumer Credit Counseling
Age: 49
Industry experience: 23 years
Inflation is still up and economic anxiety is rising – as is the need Allen Amadin sees for the types of help Auburndale-based American Consumer Credit Counseling provides nationwide. Amadin has spent 23 years at the nonprofit provider of credit counseling, debt management, reverse mortgage counseling, financial education and related services. Over that time, he’s moved from budget analysis, to credit counseling, to information technology and now, for the past two years he has been the organization’s president and CEO. During those two years, Amadin said ACCC has seen enrollment in its debt management program increase by 20 percent after growing by about 5 percent in the previous decade.
Q: What kind of partnerships do you have with banks and credit unions?
A: As a nonprofit credit counseling agency, we work in partnership with a wide range of banks and credit unions. We work with those banks and credit unions to help individuals and families manage their personal finances and get out of debt. Most of our partnerships with banks and credit unions involve negotiating with creditors on behalf of the client to secure low-interest rates, reduce fees and receive concessions to help them pay off the debt faster and more efficiently. We also have direct referral partnerships with some banks and credit unions to provide financial education and credit counseling services to their own clients. We’re always looking to establish more of this type of relationship.
Q: What are some services ACCC provides to bank and credit union clients?
A: If you’re a bank or credit union looking to provide valuable financial education and counseling services to your consumers, as a differentiator, you want to consider working with ACCC. U.S. Bank is one of our partners. Anytime they have consumers that are struggling with their credit card or just budgeting issues, they forward those calls to American Consumer Credit Counseling, and we are able to provide them with the education and, if necessary, the debt management services that they need.
Q: What needs related to financial education are out there now?
A: One is obviously the need for debt management. Many people are struggling to manage their debt and just making regular payments. What we do is we help them develop a realistic budget and a repayment plan to help them pay off their debt in a three- to five-year plan versus 20 to 25 years by just making the minimum payment.
Another financial need that we see is just for consumers to understand credit reports, so we offer credit report analysis. We help consumers understand the information contained within the credit report and how it’s important to understand your credit report to help increase your creditworthiness and to help them get better interest rates. We also provide guidance on reading and interpreting the credit report in its totality, and we also offer strategies for improving things like your credit utilization and debt-to-income ratio. Another need that we also see is the need for bankruptcy counseling for individuals who are struggling or who are considering bankruptcy.
We also help people with housing counseling. We offer what’s called HECM, which is Home Equity Conversion Mortgage, and it’s also called a reverse mortgage that allows a homeowner over 62 to convert a portion of their home equity into cash to help with budgeting needs. We also offer homebuyers education and certification.
Q: Have you seen an increased interest in financial education in recent years?
A: Yes, I’ve definitely seen an increase in interest in financial education recently, especially post-pandemic. Basically, with rising inflation, growing concern about debt, and rising housing costs, many people are recognizing that they need to develop better financial skills and strategies. The rise in inflation has also contributed to an increase in people seeking financial education. You’d be surprised how many people know that they’re struggling to make the gas payment, but they don’t really understand the greater implications regarding what it does to their budget, so we really help with that.
Q: What are some trends that you’re seeing in terms of financial health that are out there?
A: One that sticks out that I’ve really noticed recently is just the importance of financial wellness and the impact on individuals in terms of stress and mental well-being. I don’t know if it’s as a result of a pandemic, but I just don’t remember having this many people mention finances affecting their mental health as much as we’ve noticed just recently. Another trend that I’ve noticed is the growing use of technology in the financial space. These are tools that weren’t available 10 years ago. There’s definitely a shift to apps and digital tools to support financial health in recent years. We noticed the trend, and we are actually in the process of building our own digital app to help our consumers and also help attract the younger demographic as well.
Q: Are there some typical demographics that use your services?
A: The growing demographic is the younger demographic,18 to 30. But our typical client is between 45 and 50 years old, but we’ve definitely seen a shift in in recent years with some of our younger people actually having a lot more debt than we’re used to seeing in the past. We’re not even talking about student loan debt. We’re talking about unsecured credit card debt.
Q: Is there anything else that you feel is a need out there to help the 18-to-30 age group?
A: Our process is you have to pick up the phone and call us. If you’re going through the process from A to Z, it can be 90 minutes on average. People that are used to TikTok don’t want to spend that much time on the phone, but they still need our services. So, we’re trying to cater to them by offering them [an] app. In addition to that, we noticed that a lot of them are using social media to get the information. We are expanding our reach on TikTok. YouTube is actually the No. 2 search engine, so we are expanding our reach on that as well because that’s how you get the younger demographic to process and consume information about personal finance. We’re trying to meet them where they are versus just having them come to us where we are.
Amadin’s Five Favorite Books:
- “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” by Stephen Covey
- “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” by Robert Kiyosaki
- “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill
- “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” by Dale Carnegie
- “Future Skills,” by Bernard Marr
