Last week I posted, as usual, my daily blog The Tragedy of the Commons, on LinkedIn. Much readership followed.
The theme was that the “common wealth” of strong, long-serving local credit unions was being transferred without any concrete advantage, member benefit and with a lot of PR smoke and mirrors. It included an unnamed specific reference to a recently completed merger.
My position was that these events have no objective member benefit, destroy strong local coop franchises and undermine the reputation of credit unions as a different kind of financial service provider.
The most recent data on annual decline is 169. The number of U.S. credit unions dropped to 4,336 in the first quarter of 2026 from 4,505 a year earlier.
With multibillion dollar mergers (Wings-Ent or DCU-First Tech FCU’s) multi-state expansions becoming more discussed and conumated, the idea that scale is necessary to complete is complete nonsense. It is about CEO and Corporate ambition, not serving the members and dozens of local communities who built their financial capacities.
Pipe Dreams?
No less an experienced merger veteran than JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon discussed this motivation in a May 27, 2026 WSJ article He warns his team not to get lost in pipe-dream deal talks instead of improving their own operations:
“If you sit around a lot of management meetings, the first thing they do when they’re not doing well in organic growth is they start to bulls—t about M&A.
Maybe he had read about the failed California Coast-San Diego County merger events and drawback.
Reactions to Tragedy Article
Often, these conversations require a level of depth and rigor that, frankly, most of us don’t have the time for as we go about our daily live. . . To me, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how incentives, structural power, and cooperatives work. . .
large, diffuse groups, like a credit union membership base, will always be molly-wopped by a small, highly organized group like CEOs, merger consultants, and lawyers who actually have a financial stake in the consolidation. . .
Because there are real dollars at stake. Everything that’s happening is political, structural, and organized by some very adept individuals.
Or,
what’s not mentioned is that the members themselves can, and have, stopped mergers like these. Perhaps we should talk about apathy. Do people really care about their ownership anymore? They barely vote. There are no marches on the streets wanting to take back control of their credit union. There are no coups taking place where boards are wholly replaced because the members aren’t getting what they want. Perhaps we are focusing on the wrong thing- because the truth is we belong to the people and if the people no longer care, why are we fighting so hard against consolidation? (Ediror’s Note: mergers defeated by vote average one per year out of 120-140 approved per year)
Or,
. . .if the comment is suggesting that member apathy is the main reason for credit union consolidations, rather than greed and self-dealing and the failure of ethical leadership, she is just scapegoating the member owners. . . The national credit union leadership should be speaking out loudly in opposition to this travesty. Predatory behavior by giant credit unions like BECU shines a spotlight on the federal tax exemption and will eventually draw unwelcome congressional scrutiny.
Or,
Heard someone say “when everyone is an owner, nobody is an owner”, that’s stuck with me over the years when I see shortsighted decisions.
Readers can see the full article here and post their reactions in the comment section.