Chip Filson
The Seated Boxer, an iconic ancient Greek work of art, shows a grizzled veteran of the ring, equal parts resigned and ready to spring into action.
What I like is a sense of respite from competition, the powerful athletic physique and the tiredness that surrounds his humanity. Is he a winner this day? Are there more fights to go? How will his efforts be remembered?
These are questions that all of us encounter, in literal or figurative ways, in our daily efforts.
What kind of financial regulator would be most effective to carry on the purpose of the credit union system stated in the FCU ACT?
Should the credit union system be overseen by a regulator of cooperatives or of financial institutions?
The arc of federal regulation from 1934 to today is simple. The federal regulator evolved from the role of chartering, promoting and supervising cooperatives to just another financial supervisor safeguarding an insurance fund.
The coop design is unique in American financial options. The users are the sole owners of the service. The intent was to create shared community resources not private wealth. The structure was to be perpetual with the common equity always “paid forward” to benefit future generations.
Moreover, financial soundness was underwritten by this shared purpose of borrowers and savers. Governance was democratic–each member-owners had one vote. No proxies.
The turning point in cooperative regulation was the 1970 passage of a federal deposit insurance (NCUSIF) option modeled after the FDIC and FSLIC. The banking funds were created in the early 1930’s in response to the “banking holiday” failures in the depression. The nascent state chartered credit union movement had no such system failures. Deposit insurance was not part of the FCU act passed in 1934. It wasn’t needed.
The need for the NCUSIF was much debated by credit unions in the lated 1960’s. CUNA opposed the option arguing such an institution would eventually dominate the system’s functioning. A new trade association, NAFCU, was formed to lobby for and pass this federal option for cooperatives.
The NCUSIF was not created because of system failures. Rather it was a recognition that cooperatives, while different in design, were just as safe as any for-profit banking option.
As NCUSIF insurance spread, so did federal regulation mimicking other banking regulations.
When implementing deregulation from 1981-1985, NCUA Chairman Callahan asserted credit unions were unique. The so-called level playing field arguments, he believed, would undermine the cooperative advantages of member-ownership.
Callahan believed regulations should promote cooperative purpose and collaborative actions. Both tenants were key tp the financial restructure of the NCUSIF and achieving 100% credit union participation in the unique CLF’s-coop system liquidity partnership.
But the bureaucratic pull of Washington prompted later NCUA leaders to emulate the example and practices of banking regulators. Safety and soundness, not member service, became the regulator’s mantra.
Both NCUA and credit unions sought Congressional hearing seats at the tables with the titans of America’s financial services.
Today NCUA has copied banking regulators with rules such as risk-based capital and, expanding market sources of capital. New charters are non-existent. Cooperative purpose is never mentioned in supervisory priorities.
NCUA oversight has fluctuated between laisse faire (let the free market decide) to embracing the administration’s political ideology from DEI to government downsizing.
The absence of any reference to coop design is that there is no protection for for member-owner rights or their collective savings. NCUA like the banking regulators has reduced their oversight to merely offering a $250,000 payout in the event of institutional failure.
This neglect of member-owners’ rights has resulted in boards staying in power perpetually. Owners are kept out of any governance or voting role. Bylaws are modified with NCUA approval to prevent member initiatives. Boards and CEO’s feel free to take the credit union’s business model and its billions in legacy assets in any direction they choose.
Transparency for cu leaders’ conduct is non-existent. Director fiduciary duties flouted. Accountability for outcomes occurs only after a financial crisis. Then the system’s leadership shortcomings are quickly swept under the rug via mergers.
When new CEO’s arrive from outside the coop system, often former for-profit financial professionals, they bring their prior experiences with them. They act like teenagers given a new high-powered formula 1 car. With board assent, they jump into the driver’s seat and try to see how fast they can make their new institution grow.
Today NCUA acts and sounds like the other banking regulators. Credit unions applaud the Trump adminisration policy of government tear down and relaxed o exam oversight. NCUA appears alongside the other financial overseers in Congressional hearings, states all is well, and makes no effort to describe how the tax exempt coop system is fulfilling any public duty.
The consequence is that credit unions no longer see their organization as part of an interdependent financial system. Institutional success is celebrated versus cooperative’s ability to create better financial solutions for those who have the least or know the least about personal finances.
Individual credit union priorities look more and more like capitalist business plans. They attempt to acquire, not support their peers, via merger acquisitions. If that fails, just buy a bank.
With self-perpetuating board oversight, regulatory withdrawal, no transparency about transfers using tens of millions of member-owners’ capital, the cooperative system may lack the capacity for self-correction. Industry hegemony, not cooperative purpose, becomes the institution’s endgame.
How much longer will Congress or public policy think tanks not pose the existential questions: Why does America need a financial system that emulates its competitors, but with a tax exemption? Will NCUA become part of Treasury’s financial oversight, just like the OCC? Why have two federally managed deposit insurance funds that provide the same function?
Yesterday’s post gave a brief history of federal regulatory evolution, It tracked the various federal governmental departments that shepard credit union’s evolution. And subsequent events under NCUA as an independent agency. This is that author, Ancin Coolley’s concern, about where the coop movement stands today.
When you read credit union regulatory history and go back to the arguments, it keeps bringing me to this point: the FDIC and other agencies did not want credit unions. And it calls to mind the question, why did they not want them?
They did not want them because credit unions were not treated the same way as other financial institutions. They were viewed as something that drifted into a social-services posture.
And honestly, the more I dig into the history and the legal history, the more it feels like I’m finding out Santa Claus isn’t real. The more I learn about the lack of standing for members in court, and the reality that there’s often no remedy for members against directors who effectively give away capital, the more disorienting it feels.
It’s like there’s the reality I want to believe in, and then there’s the legal reality of what a credit union actually does.
And what I can’t even begin to reconcile conceptually is this: credit unions want to maintain their tax exemption while also purchasing banks. In good conscience, I can’t even argue against someone who says, “How are you going to maintain your tax exemption if you’re buying a bank, when you were originally given a tax exemption for not being a bank?”
It makes absolutely no sense.
History matters. It provides perspective for how we arrived at our present circumstance. This context can highlight critical prior assumptions. It teaches about successes and failings.
Most critically, knowledge of the past can help identify important issues for future sustainability.
In the summary which follows, Ancin Cooley provides insight about the motivations during credit unions founding era. And what has been lost from that generation’s experiences.
Tomorrow I address the underlying question from this history lesson: What kind of regulator is most likely to sustain an independent cooperative financial option for America?
By Ancin Cooley
Did you know that between 1934 and 1970, credit unions had four different federal regulators, and none of them actually wanted the job?
Here’s the journey:
1934–1942: Farm Credit Administration
When the Federal Credit Union Act was passed, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department were the “logical agencies” to oversee a financial institution. Both said “Nah, we’ll pass.”
1942–1948: FDIC
During World War II, credit unions were temporarily transferred to the FDIC. But the FDIC didn’t want them either.
1948–1953: Social Security Administration
When the FDIC pushed credit unions out, they didn’t go to another financial regulator. Credit unions were placed in the Social Security Administration.
1953–1970: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
When HEW was created, credit unions moved again.
In 1970, the NCUA was established and the NCUSIF created.
What does this tell us?
Credit unions weren’t seen as financial institutions in the same category as banks. The St. Louis Fed wrote: “Credit unions are exempt from federal taxation because Congress views them as member cooperatives and, therefore, quite different from banks and thrifts.”
But why?
Why were credit unions classified differently and given a non-profit status? Many credit unions from that era were born out of crisis. The Great Depression wasn’t an abstraction for the people who built these institutions; it was a lived experience.
From the 1929 crash through 1933, about 9,000 U.S. banks failed. Those failures resulted in approximately $1.3B in losses. (I am sure someone can convert that into today’s dollars)
If you’ve ever known someone from that generation, you know it changed them. My grandmother is 93 years old. She hid money in places we have not yet found. That era shaped how an entire generation related to trust, to institutions, and to one another. Credit unions didn’t grow from a clever marketing campaign. They grew as a community in response to a collapse of trust.
A note on where we are now.
I’ve been wondering why the norms in the credit union movement began to deteriorate about 25 to 30 years ago. I believe the early builders reached a point at which they could no longer protect their institutions.
Many of the things we are watching today would have been harder to pull off if those original guardians were still in the boardroom. I find myself often whispering to myself, “Now, you know this wouldn’t have gone like this if Mr. John were still alive.”
The people who built many of these institutions carried a lived memory of bank failures. They remembered what it felt like to lose everything. That memory did something important. It created guardrails. Because when you have experienced a trust collapse, you do not treat a cooperative as a commodity.
Next post: how the S&L crisis reshaped the credit union landscape, including the entry of bankers who both helped and harmed the movement.
Editor’s note: I will post my response to Ancin’s insight tomorrow.
For the first 75 years of credit union history, member, share and asset growth was from internal, “organic “ business efforts versus external acquisitions.
Some of the factors requiring this approach were regulation, field of membership limits, the absence of external capital or liquidity, and the cooperative design’s “local” advantage.
After deregulation of financial services became government policy in the 1980’s, many of these constraints were modified. Growth options expanded. FOM regulations were broadened. New membership strategies such as indirect lending were introduced. Credit union leaders expanded their market ambitions.
Today many credit union strategies involve both organic and external acquisition growth tactics.
This market bidding for new members is illustrated by financial institutions’ multiple offers for new checking accounts. Here are some recent cash bounties sent to me:
From an airline credit card issuer:
As a valued Chase customer we’re thanking you with an up to $900 offer. Open a new Chase total Checking account and the new Chase Savings account with qualifying business activities.
One of my credit unions emailed this offer:
Dear Charles,
You can still earn up to $100 when you open a new Patelco Checking and Money Market account. Here’s how.
USAA’s post card appeal had this headline; $400 Cash Bonus. The offer: When you apply for and open your first USAA Classic Checking account and receive a qualifying direct deposit. Offer is nontransferable.
A new local bank, Atlantic Union, promised a $400 welcome bonus in three easy steps.
Not to be outdone, PenFed offers up to $300 for opening a new checking account with a qualified deposit. To receive the full $300 requires an initial $20,000 deposit. The average daily balance must remain above this amount for five months to receive the $300.
Indirect auto loans illustrate the ultimate challenge of external asset purchases. Can these new customers be converted to loyal members. Or is the transacton a one and done event?
Before deregulation the credit union option was itself compelling. Word of mouth was the most common marketing effort. Credit union membership was thought to be a valuable benefit.
One proof of this belief is the many times members moved away from a job or their community, but chose to retain their credit union affiliation-just in case I need it.
In what some CEO’s view as a commoditized financial services arena, the quickest way to grow is to go buy it. These efforts include third party loan originations, purchasing individual participations, acquiring whole banks and the ever present offers to merge facilitated by golden parachutes for the selling CEO.
Is offering a better price sustainable?
Will these “bonus” pricing strategies result in long term loyalty?
Buying growth seems easy at first. The costs and immediate increases in size are seen. The longer term question of whether these relationships last, is down the road.
The tactics of purchasing initial market success raises important questions:
Buying growth is not a unique market capability. It is very visible and easy. Just call up a broker or other third party originator. The real work of relationship building just begins with the booking.
Purchasing growth is constrained by internal resources and market competition. Is attracting new members with a better price the best way to present the cooperative value advantage?
The capabilities and reputation that created a $2.3 trillion ciiperative financial system today were built on a foundation of multiple factors. These included convenience, personal service, local familiarity and a fair price. All wrapped in values centered on collective community care.
The challenge of creating real organizational value is ever present. The answers are not simple and often unique to a credit union’s situation and leadership skills.
The response is not to go back to a prior era or model. Rather it is a simple lesson from generations of coop success. If an organization wants to be a credit union, then it must decide to be one. Not perfect, but at least good. America has plenty of banks.
P.S. Here is a case study published by CUDaily of a credit union expansion effort based on credit union advanages: Why a California Credit Union Intro’d a New Digital Brand in Georgia.
One of the important collaborative efforts is the system of credit union professional courses. These multi-year commitments are preparing junior staff members for leadership roles in their careers.
I received the following note from a person attending one of the oldest and largest of these programs:
The folk singer Jesse Welles and retired credit union CEO Jim Blaine are separated by two generations of lived experience. Yet they share a vision and common mission for the country.
Each person has their own professional “lane” for implementing their commitment. Side by side they illuminate each other’s core values.
Most credit union people of a certain era know about Jim Blaine’s career at SECU (NC). Over five decades he built the country’s second largest credit union by not following conventional industry practice.
His two guiding principles to staff were simple: Do the right thing and Bring us your Momma. Folksy, yet profound.
No risk-based pricing–a member either qualified or not for the loan. No indirect lending allowing a third party to set the rate. No frills credit cards. Focus on real estate as the surest means to enhance member long term well-being.
He created a Warren Buffet like organization with centralized funding but local decision making and implementation, SECU built a statewide network of ATM’s and over 200 branches. He chartered a unique member-funded foundation supporting education, health and other community needs throughout his home market, the Tar Heel state.
He was outspoken about his approach to cooperative purpose, often challenging peers’ priorities.
“A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown” is a biblical phrase that summarizes Jim Blaine’s most recent efforts.
For the past four years he has spoken his mind about the direction SECU’s board and senior management have taken. His blog, SECU just Asking is plain spoken, factual, and sometimes personal when publicly challenging the credit union’s change of philosophy.
Over five decades Jim built one of the most successful cooperative financial charters in America by following one simple rule: “What’s good for the least of us, is good for all of us.” A phrase with multiple meanings.
The purpose of the tax exempt cooperative system is to serve a vital segment of America’s consumers. He described that group as: Those who have the least or know he least pay the most for financial services in America today.”
Many peers misunderstood this approach, believing his business model was archaic, lacking innovation and missing the most important market, the A credits and well-to-do.
I was listening to recent protest songs from community sings in Minneapolis, now under federal armed siege. My algorithm offered a Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger-style activist folk singer.
Born in 1992 in Arkansas, Jesse Welles has, over the last ten years, written hundreds of single ballads about life, politics and those left out of America’s promise.
One commentator describes his voice as sounding like burnt toast. To which he replied, but you can still eat it.
One ballad that caught my ear was called The Poor. The chorus has these ironical lines to support the common view that the poor just need to work a little harder: “It ain’t the banks / And it ain’t the taxes / It ain’t the payday loans and high-rent homes / And predatory fees and practices”.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6vjaimSK4E)
Jim Blaine is the counter example to Jesse’s satirical critique of those who blame the poor for being poor.
Both men are outspoken, but grounded in the belief that change can happen. They are unconventional in their approach to their professions so are unlikely to be honored by the establishment.
Both believe in protecting the vulnerable, standing up for justice and caring for “the least of these” in our communities. For them economic justice is moral justice. We cannot remain silent when individuals and families are preyed upon by a system that celebrates profit as its highest priority.
These two voices illuminate a shared vision. Together they challenge us to live into our better selves.
This is a CEO’s statement from the monthly staff update:
Our credit union is in a very commoditized business of financial services, most of our products and services can be purchased elsewhere. So our difference is you, how we treat each other and our members to truly change lives one person at a time in our community.
And then a reminder of two guiding principles: Every person has a story-do the right thing.
Recently consultant Ancin Cooley in a LinkedIn post described why doing the right thing happens rarely to employees in a merged credit union.
His recent blog should be posted in the employee lounge of every credit union office. Mergers of well- run credit unions not only eliminate a local grounded financial institution. They also end employees’ investment in their professional future. Following is his analysis of the impact of mergers on the most important “difference makers” in every credit union.
The consolidation cheerleaders talk about member impact, technology investments, and competitive positioning.
The executives advocating loudest for mergers built careers in an industry that had room for them. They were given opportunities for hashtagCEO, hashtagCFO, and hashtagCLO roles at shops, and VP positions at institutions that no longer exist because they’ve since been absorbed. Those jobs paid mortgages, put kids through college, and built retirements.
The Ladder They Climbed Is Being Pulled Up Behind Them
Every merger eliminates leadership positions—CEO, CFO, CLO, and VPs. Two credit unions become one, and half the top roles vanish.For early-career workers, this means fewer rungs up the corporate ladder to reach for. The CEO role at that $350 million credit union that could have been theirs in fifteen years? Absorbed into a $1 billion merger. Gone. “Good luck bud…”
For mid-career professionals who’ve spent a decade building expertise, the chair they were positioning for no longer exists. They did everything right.
The “Efficiencies” Folks Celebrate Are Your Career and Your Money.
When merger advocates toast economies of scale and eliminated redundancies, translate that: they’re toasting eliminated people.
Early-career workers lose the broad exposure that builds future executives. The young professional at a $200 million credit union who might touch lending, compliance, member service, and strategy? At the merged $3 billion institution, they’re a specialist in a silo, building narrow skills with no line of sight to leadership.
Mid-career professionals find their expertise deemed “redundant” when two departments become one. One compliance officer survives. One lending director. One marketing lead. Senior professionals get offered early retirement packages or the dignity of reporting to someone who was their peer last quarter.
The Mission Is Being Sold Off by People It Already Paid
Many younger workers chose credit unions over banks because they wanted work that meant something. The idea that finance could serve people rather than extract from them. Now they watch executives who built wealth and reputation on cooperative principles abandon those principles for scale and extraction. The same leaders who gave conference speeches about “people helping people” or “Main Street Values” now give conference speeches about “competitive positioning” and “Market Forces.”
To the Millennials, Gen Z, and future Gen Alpha workers in this movement: the path is narrower than it should be. And they owe you more than a picture with a politician and the ability to “crash” an event. But the mission that drew you here is still worth fighting for, and you might be the generation that reclaims and rebuilds it.
Every proposed merger of a sound credit union depends on the overt support or quiet acceptance of staff. In these situations, they are the first line of defense for “doing the right thing” for members and their communities.
Remaining obedient or quiescent as leaders plan the demise of their institutions’ integrity and future will compromise the values underpinning both personal and corporate purpose.
Speaking up is never easy. But that is what makes a democracy work in a credit union or a country.
Yesterday’s scripture reading was from the Sermon on the Mount. The lesson includes Jesus’s multiple teachings (Beatitudes) beginning with Blessed are the meek. . . Blessed are the poor in spirit….
On the sign in front of the church, the sermon title was Blessed are Those Blowing Whistles.
Individuals are doing more than making noise. People are recording and publishing videos, interviews and pictures of federal troop immigration occupations-and the resulting abuses and cruelties -in towns and cities across the country.
The people have become the press, taking their first amendment rights of freedom of speech seriously. They have used virtual channels and networks to post their stories and pictures. It reminds one of the pamphleteers during the Revolutionary War.
But citizen journalism is not limited to tracking immigration abuses. Individuals are finding ways to raise concerns about their credit unions.
I am a three decade member of XYZ Credit Union. I was shocked by the proposed merger with YYY which was sprung on our community and membership without warning or advance notice.
I attended the annual membership meeting and there was zero mention of this. The Board of Directors has acted in secrecy and this sellout is now presented as a done deal.
These kinds of deep worry are sent to my blog address two or three times per month. Sometimes the opening will begin: As a former employee and long-time member of XXX I am deeply concerned about . . .
These members want to know how to amplify their voice. And that is the first goal of the member-journalist, to make their concerns public and bring transparency to situations.
Several CEO’s even embrace these individual voices. One publishes Net Promoter Score comments in the monthly staff update, but not just the 9 and 10 ratings, also the 4s and 5s which are often complaints about a service, policy or member disappointment.
The credit union press primarily relies on the publicity releases of the industry. Rare are the occasions for member comment except when picked up from a news story. Or very occasionally from member comments opposing mergers.
Both credit union media as well as the public press rarely have the resources to pursue individual cases of self-dealing orworse.
In a democracy, and especially in organizations claiming to be governed by their members, they will find ways to speak out. It is the American way. And ultimately it will lead to organized opposition should their concerns be ignored.
With the emergence of local digital media, these stories are now receiving greater coverage. Here is an example from the Baltimore Banner, an online non-profit news source for the greater Baltimore community.
Project Salt Box: How citizen sleuths are monitoring ICE in Maryland
First they unearthed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts for 42,000 ready-to-eat meals coming to Maryland.
Then they built a data map of how the federal Department of Homeland Security was distributing its funding.
Last week, two-month-old Project Salt Box and its seven-person team revealed what some say is a sign that an ICE surge could be coming to the state.
The group, which works to unearth and explain the public documents behind federal immigration enforcement, was the first to report on Tuesday that DHS had purchased a warehouse near Hagerstown. In correspondence with Washington County officials, federal officials described how they could retrofit the space to become an immigration detention facility. . . .
The American citizenry is finding its voice. It will not wait for elections. Rather it will seek to change leaders’ behaviors now.
Credit unions were nurtured in the grassroots of local activism. They found sponsor support to create new collaborative options for their community.
This latent activism is just below the surface. In the transfer of hundreds of millions of member equity and billions of assets to third party control, their voices will rise. And they should.
Blessed are those cooperators who use whistles of words to rouse their fellow members to stand for economic justice for all. Future generations will honor them.
Last three nights the low temperature was in single digits: 6 degrees. High during daytime is in mid 20’s. No melt at all.
Schools still closed. Roads open but too cold for kids to walk to school.
Potomac started to freeze. So you want to be careful about using the phrase, “Until hell freezes over”-it could happen.
Ice on snow, hard as iron. Only way in or out. Even mailman missed two days.
A Japaese snow lantern in its true setting.
Roads open, but snow on sides will be there for weeks. Solid ice.
A local ice fort. Note how walls have been made like stone slabs.
Cleaning walks and porches is a three person effort. Snow blowers no good on ice packed snow. Use dirt shovels. spades and even pick axes. Normal snow shovels not strong enough, laying on ground.
Essential work.
No tennis today. Have to go to Florida.
Plant covers could save some bushes and flowers.
But power is still on in area. Just need more hot air.
Here’s the link.
2. Explosion of new banking applications at OCC.
This BankingDive article says the eighteen new charter applications in 2025 exceeds the total of the prior four years.
Applicants include Nissan and PayPal for industrial bank charters, the license that Thrivent FCU converted to in 2025. (link)
Other applicants include fintechs such as checkout.com. Six applicants have received conditional approval.
The article includes this quote from the OCC head:
Gould has said the influx is “a return to the norm” for the agency, and that it “signals healthy competition, a commitment to innovation, and should be encouraging to all of us.”
3. Tired of News about Greenland’s Future?
Here is an AI generated video about the Greenland’s territorial defense force that should put to rest all US concerns. Composed by some cheeky Irish balladeers.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOpymCZ0PAU)
Have a productive weekend watching or shoveling the fluffy white stuff.
The golden calf in biblical stories is a symbol of idolatry. In these tellings, the statue is worshipped by a people or nation that has forgotten the values they held together. These idols include the temptations of earthly riches, political domination and worship of false gods.
Currently, Trump literally holds court with the public and press in a gilded Presidential office.
The credit union system also displays the appeal of glitter. Every week there is a new PR release of a credit union climbing the never ending ladder of state or national asset rankings. These steps upward are not from internal growth, but from a just completed external acquisition.
Credit unions’ exemption from state and federal income tax implies an obligation of public duty. The cooperative option was not intended as just another financial choice. But instead, an alternative to the for-profit system driven by ever greater market share and superior financial returns.
Here is an AI generated Edward Filene critique of credit unions’ tendency to adopt banking practices. Created by a concerned coop CEO. (link)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lBPV3tx_WM&t=21s)
In this time of misplaced or lost public purpose, some feel called to be truth tellers. They seek to transform the priorities of wayward coop activities. Some of these credit union believers are member-owners. They call out the abandonment of member value being replaced by institutional glory. And the frenzied search for more golden calf acquisitions.
They speak the truth that credit unions were formed to provide consumers a financial home that would avoid the excesses of the for-profit sector. Today, some coop leaders believe that to beat the competition, a credit union must become the competition.
With coops, the owner-customer design can be an unmatchable competitive advantage. That is, until members are treated like customers whose relationships are routinely bought from or sold to third parties.
The American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
She emphasized that significant cultural and institutional shifts always begin with a few individuals who act as catalysts, demonstrating new behaviors and inspiring others.
Coop strength is an example of Mead’s observation. A credit union’s viability is from roots planted by a small committed group and nurtured with generations of member loyalty.
Some of these member-owner voices are being raised to challenge their institution’s monopoly of corporate power, not subject to their governance.
They are raising alarms in their local press and sometimes in national media. Some concerned CEO’s are no longer willing to follow their industry’s call to be still about their objections with their predatory peers.
In multiple institutional pillars today (media, universities, military, business) democratic norms are under attack. Voices are reminding credit unions of their purpose– to offer each member a financial home where their “daily bread” is the priority versus an insatiable drive for growth.
Even in the uncertainty of misdirected events these individuals are joining hands and linking arms to return the coop model to its counter-cultural economic responsibility.
Credit unions will once again be recognized as a safe place where people, even when on the edge, can find hope.
This cooperative public spirit has transformed lives and the well-being of millions. It is an option that has attracted over one hundred million Americans as member owners and billions of their savings dollars.
But will this effort to rekindle credit union purpose succeed?
Martin Luther King stated the challenge this way: Truth when crushed to earth will rise again. This is the credit union’s public promise, even as some bow their knee to the altars of gold.