Category: Co-ops in Capitalism

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An Update on the Taxi Medallion Business or:  “Low Balling Price to Win Market Share”

Uber and Lyft have never made money.   Cumulative losses are in the billions.  And continuing.   Two reasons for this lack of profit are spending billions of venture capital funds to subsidize fares below the regulated cab industry.  Secondly, under compensating their driver-business partners.

Now that both firms are public, the pressure for profits by public investors (now that the venture capital funders have made their windfalls) is changing their business and pricing models.

A thoughtful comment by my favorite market analyst (CNBC’s Kelly Evans), suggests the game may be up.  While it does not mean NYC taxi medallions will rise to the former values of over $500,000, it suggests that the future will be much more stable and that drivers and medallion owners can expect reasonable returns—as medallion prices become linked to actual earnings.

Kelly Evans kelly@cnbc.com, June 15, 2021:

Here’s a half-baked thought I’m just going to throw out there: 

Is venture capital bad for society? 

I was thinking about this as we talked to Kevin Roose yesterday about his recent NYT piece, “Farewell, Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy.” His point is that all the goodies millennials enjoyed over the past decade or so–cheap Ubers, food delivery, and on-demand household workers–were never properly priced until the companies all went public, suddenly have to turn (or at least pretend they’re on a path to eventually turn) a profit, and have to raise prices as a result. It doesn’t help this is all happening amidst a historic labor shortage, either.  

“Hiring a private driver to shuttle you across Los Angeles during rush hour should cost more than $16,” he wrote, “if everyone in that transaction is being fairly compensated.” It’s one more reason many millennials have tired of their previous urban/on-demand lifestyles and see the advantages of things like car and home ownership.  

So now that Uber has to shore up its financials, its rides aren’t as cheap and its service isn’t as attractive. This isn’t just a pandemic phenomenon; the company went public at $45 a share in May of 2019, and today trades at just $49 and change. If you’d bought General Motors the day Uber went public, meanwhile, you’d be up more than 60%.  

In other words, the $20 billion that Uber raised as a private company basically just allowed it to underprice rides for a while–long enough to nearly put the rest of the transportation-for-hire business into bankruptcy. How can any viable business, which has to rely on actual profitability, compete with one that’s that highly subsidized by the wealthy (which are most early-stage VCs and their investors)? Are all of these jazzy start-ups really about improving the future, or about using neat technology to earn subsidies that allow them to undercut legitimate businesses all over the country? 

On an even grimmer note, the rise of Uber led to a plunge in the value of New York City taxi medallions, leaving drivers who had bought medallions before Uber’s arrival holding massive debt. A 2019 investigation after more than eight drivers committed suicide in 2018 found the typical driver had $500,000 of debt, and a quarter of them were considering bankruptcy. 

Listen, I’m all for technological innovation. But there’s a difference between hey, now you can book a car from your phone! and hey, our private capital is allowing us to price this way below what it should actually cost.  

Now that we’ve seen how many of these stories actually play out, perhaps we customers ought to be a little more discerning. Maybe I don’t need to play in the unsustainably-cheap-to-the-point-of-being-bad-for-existing-businesses game. Maybe the next time we hear of a “disruptor” raising however many millions of dollars to “change the way we do xyz,” our first question should be–are you really innovating, or are you just temporarily lowballing the price of these services to win market share?  

Just a thought. Am I way off base here?  “

**********************************************************

Kelly’s points are very helpful.   We are now seeing the cycle of disruption play out and a new equilibrium being sought.   Four of my previous blogs discuss some of her observations about the fragility of the Uber/Lyft business model.

The common theme of each blog is that credit unions and NCUA should demonstrate as much responsibility to borrowers in a crisis as they do to savers.  Without the former, there will be no return for the latter.

https://chipfilson.com/2019/10/uber-et-al-and-the-taxi-medallion-industry/

https://chipfilson.com/2020/02/an opportunity for the NCUA Board to do the right thing/

https://chipfilson.com/2020/02/NCUA’s betrayal/

https://chipfilson.com/2020/12/disposable-members: an NCUA policy that must change/

 

 

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The Public Policy Role of Credit Union Cooperatives (Part 1)

Most credit union observers agree that the emergence of financial cooperatives was one outgrowth of the reform movements affecting many areas of American society at the beginning of the 20th century.

Across America, factory workers, farmers, women suffragettes, and city social workers had organized numerous initiatives and political efforts to resolve emerging problems. These initiatives responded to individual abuses and inequalities that became exacerbated during this era of monopoly capitalism converting a largely agrarian economy to an industrial one.

Credit unions were one of many attempts to meet the basic financial needs of ordinary people who had no access to fair financial services of any kind. This experiment begun with St. Mary’s Bank in 1909, then slowly evolved state by state over twenty-five years. These various examples became the proof of concept that resulted in the passage of the Federal Credit Union Act in 1934 as part of FDR’s new deal initiatives.

Filene and Bergengren convinced the administration and Congress that a national program for expanding consumer credit could help with recovery during the depression by increasing demand for consumer goods and services with credit.

The following slides provide snapshots of the evolution of the “movement” from social initiative to a fully formed financial system alternative for consumers. They summarize the ever changing balance between mission/purpose and institutional financial success as overseen by the federal regulator.

  1. The Need for Fair Consumer Credit

  1. Roosevelt’s support. 4,793 federal charters were issued from 1934 through 1941 when new charters fell temporarily to around 100  per year during WW II.

  1. Credit unions were first overseen by the Department of Agriculture. During WWII oversight was transferred to the FDIC. Post war, the bureau of federal credit unions became a department within HEW. In 1977 the National Credit Union Administration became an independent agency.

  1. In 1977 NCUA’s independent status began with 13,050 active federal charters. At the end of 2020 there are 3,185 active federal credit unions. Of the 24,925 federal charters granted, 92% were issued in the forty-four years prior to NCUA’s becoming an independent regulatory agency. Under NCUA the balance between mission/purpose and economic performance has increasingly focused on financial performance.

  1. Today NCUA’s safety and soundness measures dominate cooperative oversight.

  1. The absence of new charters has stifled entrants with innovative ideas. The industry has consolidated and become more homogeneous in business strategy.

Slides: 3-6 are by Steve Hennigan, CEO of Credit Human FCU using feedback loop analysis.

The traditional view of credit union’s special role justifying their tax exemption has three bases: their cooperative, member-owned structure, the legislative intent to serve people left behind by existing financial options, and the field of membership-common bond-requirement.

As the cooperative business model has evolved, so has the concept of purpose and credit union’s role in their communities. Today member’s financial health is an animating concept for some. Other credit unions continue emphasis on superior service, better value, and member relationships.

Consumer financial services are now available from multiple providers. Credit union’s success confirmed that consumer lending is an attractive business opportunity for banks and other start up firms. Today many financial options and new entrants, from payday lenders to online lending startups, target consumers.

More than a Business Model–A Design Advantage

The founding pioneers of credit unions did more than prove out a new business segment with consumers. The cooperative model was one in which people:

  • Found a solution by working together;
  • Identified common challenges to organize and solve it themselves;
  • Prioritized mutual needs overcoming fears that they couldn’t succeed;
  • Created a community and bond that formed relationships to sustain efforts;
  • Accomplished something they had never done before to get something they didn’t have.

Cooperative purpose established these core traditions that are the foundation for continuing credit union relevance and uniqueness in an ever-changing economy.

The question is, if credit unions did not exist, would we create them today? What needs would they serve? Is purchasing the assets and liabilities of banks, consistent with the credit union cooperative role?

 

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Intergenerational Thinking and Co-op Design

The concept of paying forward is inherent in the credit union model.  Current leadership begins with a legacy of common wealth inherited from previous efforts.  The assumption is that the current generation will in turn pass an even greater legacy to their children’s children.

This is not the performance standard dictated for profit making firms in a market economy.   Rather the inexorable force of the invisible hand drives a firm’s stock price.   Success or shortfalls, are measured quarterly against explicit annual performance expectations.

What Will our Descendants Thank Us For?

Credit unions were founded with a different ethic of success.  The member ownership allows co-ops to play “the long game.” Performance encompasses obligations for the common good of members and their communities.

John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a leading English art critic of the Victorian era.  He was an art patron, draughtsman, watercolorist, philosopher, social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as architecture, myth, literature, education, botany and political economy.

His vision for human enterprise uses an architectural metaphor which I believe embraces this unique, intergenerational scope of cooperative design:

“When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our fathers did for us.”

 

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Do Small Credit Unions Matter?  Should They?  Will They?

In March 2014 before Jim Blaine laid down his sword, err pen, he wrote about the demise of small credit unions.  In the blog Clubbing Baby Seals, he used numbers to describe this decline concluding: “We’re in the midst of a “CU ecological” meltdown.” And the cooperative climate has only gotten hotter since.

The Less than $10 Million Segment Trends

The starting point in Jim’s analysis was ten years earlier in 2004 when there were 4,255 credit unions under $10 million.  At his writing, the total had fallen by half.  I updated his numbers for the most recent decade, 2010 through 2020, which show a continuing decline of the under $10 million segment from 2,908 (41% of cu’s) to 1,179 (23% of cu’s)—a 60% drop.

Many would react to these trends with a shrug: “They are what they are. This is just the marketplace at work.  These credit unions often underperform industry averages, do not provide a wide range of services, and members can find better deals elsewhere.  Besides larger credit unions continue to add members and grow. These organizations are not significant to carrying out the cooperative mission.”

Why Credit Unions Should Be Concerned With this Trend

This trend matters because of its impact on the system’s future  in two respects.

  1. All credit unions start small. Every credit union operating today was organized with assets in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.  From these small seeds large oaks can grow.  While all credit unions under $100 million show declines in charter numbers, segments above this amount have added 351 to their number in the same decade.  All emerged from the smaller asset segments. For the largest category, greater than $1 billion in assets, the count has gone from 167 in 2010, to more than 375 today.  Without seeds, the system will eventually run out of crops to harvest.
  2. The traditional interpretation of the decline is incomplete. Credit unions from the very beginning have started and then faltered.  Most that do not sustain operations are small.  Since FOM changes in the 1980’s, the vast majority of closed charters merge with other credit unions.

In 1978 when NCUA published the ratio for the FCU survival rate–number of active charters divided by number of charters issued–the percentage was 55%.   That was after 44 years of operations.

Today that ratio is 13%. (3,185 active/24,925 FCU’s chartered).  However, the reason for this dramatic decline in sustainability is not that small credit unions cannot survive.

The Federal Regulator’s About Face

In every year beginning in 1934 (except three war years) until 1971, the number of new FCU charters granted always exceeded the number cancelled.  In that year, FCU’s were required to qualify for NCUSIF insurance.  In 1978 NCUA became an independent agency.

In the same length of 44 years of NCUA’s oversight, the number of cancelled charters has exceeded new startups every year.  The loss of just federal charters during NCUA’s  tenure as an independent agency totals 9,865—from 13,050 (in 1978) to 3,185 (2020).

The primary reason for the decline of almost 10,000 active federal credit unions is that new charters have become virtually impossible to attain. They have averaged fewer than 10 per year in this century, and only 2.5 in the last decade.

The possibility for groups of citizens to form and control their own democratically governed financial entity has been effectively extinguished by the very organization charged with overseeing the cooperative system’s safety and soundness.

So What?

With new entrants effectively turned away, the industry’s structure will inevitably become more  consolidated in much larger credit unions. The diversity in credit union charter size is being eliminated.

Some would opine, “so what?”   Members continue to join, and the industry is financially strong and independent of sponsors. This is the natural outcome of any business in a competitive market economy.

Punching Above Their Weight

Blaine’s concern about the demise of smaller credit unions was summarized as:  Small credit unions “punch well above their weight” in terms of member impact and community importance.  Every credit union was created for a purpose, rarely did that original purpose have anything to do with ‘growth’”. 

He calls out the organizing motivations for a cooperative charter: persons with a common interest getting together to improve their local circumstances and opportunity.  Members then and today care most about the service they receive.

A credit union’s asset ranking, number of branches, surcharge free ATM’s or even its multiple channels do not create loyalty if an institution cannot respond to individual and local circumstances. That is the key factor in small credit union success.

The Democratization of Financial Opportunity

Credit unions’ democratic character was created from a fabric of relationships and community support.  These local origins were their source of political support.  Even though banks have opposed credit unions from the beginning, they have been unable to block their efforts to expand member services.

“Punching above their weight” is illustrated most recently by the quickness of Congress to overturn the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Federal Credit Union act in 1998 limiting common bond to a single group.  In just months, the Credit Union Membership Access Act was passed approving the  field of membership interpretation NCUA authored in 1983.

But that success was over two decades ago.  Do credit unions conceived  in earlier eras still have the same political weight today?  Have the growth ambitions of some  via “voluntary” mergers and bank purchases raised issues of both member and public support for a less distinctive cooperative charter?

Can Small be Big Again?

I do not know what the future will bring.   Will ever-larger credit unions be increasingly viewed as just another impersonal financial option, like a bank?  Will the tax exemption survive the expansions of markets and scattering of local attention and knowledge?

Will the goodwill so critical in any industry’s ongoing success wither away as the seed corn for its future is no longer replenished? Or will credit union leaders see this declining trend as a priority and provide support comparable to the $100 million goal of CUNA’s Open Your Eyes marketing campaign?

Renewal efforts are underway. Can the initiatives to repurpose charters with new human capital be proven out?  Will the efforts to create more service center options via CUSO’s succeed?  Can the charter process be assigned to the regions so applicants are supported positively and quickly?

Two factors suggest this trend can be addressed.  The places of economic disparities and need are as numerous now as any time in our history.  The human spirit of solving problems and the values of cooperatives align with many seeking to bring change for a more equitable America.

 

 

 

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Two Reflections from Memorial Day

Opposition to the Vietnam war on many college campuses led to the cancellation of ROTC programs.  Subsequently the draft was ended with all branches of the military now relying on volunteers to fill their ranks.

One observer commented on the fewer ROTC programs and the elimination of the draft as incentives for college graduates to serve in an all-volunteer military.  He foresaw a possible outcome as follows:  Societies fall to folly when they draw distinct lines between their warriors and scholars. What this ultimately leads to is society’s thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools. 

What if we are called to serve and fail to answer?

The heydays of credit union charters began in the Great Depression with passage of the Federal Credit Union Act in 1934.   Post WWII saw another upsurge in new chartering activity.  From 1949-1970 between 500-700 new FCU charters were issued per year.

By yearend 1978, when NCUA became an independent agency, 23,278 federal charters had been granted of which 12,769 (55%) were still operating.

Many factors affected this chartering explosion.   One was the social ethic of the Greatest Generation.  The cooperative values of self-help, local leadership and community service were closely aligned with the ethos of the generation forged by depression and world war.

Some writers believe this capacity for social responsibility has been superseded in current generations by a more individualistic focus,  personal independence  and financial success.

A guest editorial by Margaret Renkl on this change of values was published Memorial Day, May 31, 2021 in the New York Times.

My question is whether this attitude might contribute to the virtual absence of new charters in this century.   There have been 193 FCU’s in first 20 years of this century, or fewer than 10 per year.  Here are several excerpts of the writer’s thinking:

“Young men of my father’s generation grew up during wartime and generally expected to serve when their turn came. No generation since has felt the same way. There are compelling reasons for that shift — the protracted catastrophe in Vietnam not least — but I’m less interested in why it happened than in what it tells us about our country now. What does it mean to live in a nation with no expectation for national service? With no close-hand experience of national sacrifice? . . .

 The need for some nonmartial way to nurture communitarian qualities is more urgent now than ever. We have lately been reminded of the absolute necessity for Americans to be motivated by warm fellow feeling across divides of region, race, class, politics, religion, age, gender, or ability; to cultivate a sense of common purpose; to make sacrifices for the sake of others. And that reminder came in the form of watching what happens when such qualities are absent, even anathema, in whole regions of the country. . .

If Vietnam exploded the unquestioned commitment to national service, the coronavirus pandemic should have been the very thing to bring it back.

That it did exactly the opposite tells us something about who we are as human beings, and who we are as a nation. There is more to mourn today than I ever understood before.” 

The Question for Credit Unions

To the extent that our society has lost capacity to “nurture its communitarian” responsibilities, how does this affect the cooperative model?  Credit unions rely on volunteers. Their greatest strength is the fabric of relationships they cultivate with members and their communities.   Has the model lost its way as a new generation of leaders takes control without a link or even knowledge of the qualities that created the institutions they inherit?

Have credit unions abandoned their capacity to cultivate a sense of common purpose; to make sacrifices for the sake of others now that they have achieved financial sufficiency and can stand apart from their roots?

Is credit union leadership today susceptible to the social folly described by the first writer?

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A Memorial Day Question

For two decades as a member of the National Men’s Chorus I participated in the final concert of the season on Memorial Day weekend.

The annual program might be modified to recognize an anniversary such as VE day or a Civil War commemoration.  However, most of the repertoire was arranged from popular melodies from the Revolutionary War era through the Vietnam conflict.

These songs, from Columbia Gem of the Ocean to The Ballad of the Green Berets, inspired and reminded listeners of the precious heritage that military conflicts have gained for all Americans.

This respect is especially evident during The Service Medley, as members of each military branch stand and honored as their song is sung.

One of the most uplifting moments in the program is  The Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861, it is sometimes called America’s second national anthem.

One writer described it as “a warrior’s cry and a call to arms. Its vivid portrait of sacred violence captures how Americans fight wars, from the minié balls of the Civil War to the shock and awe of Iraq.  America’s song of itself-how the country feels about war.”

As a call to duty, it has inspired suffragists and labor organizers, civil rights leaders, and novelists—like John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath.

A  New Meaning with Another Word

Her poem’s first verse certainly evokes the fury and righteousness of war: (original spelling)

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trapling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He haved loosed the faiteful lightening of his terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on

The final verse call all to sacrifice in this sacred duty:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me
As he died to make men holy let us die to make men free
His truth is marching on

But Is Sacrifice the Intent?

My first wife. Mary Ann, died in 1984.  In a Memorial Day church service earlier that decade, this Hymn was included.  Except the line in the final verse was changed to, As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free. For her that was the meaning of Memorial Day. We honor those who die by how we serve the living.

 Which word best fits America today?  What is our call to duty?  Are we to remember just the increasingly small percentage of American families that serve and die in the military?  Or might there be a more all-encompassing obligation to “truth marching on?”

A Contemporary Interpretation

After the Civil War, Juliet Ward Howe became active in the women’s suffrage movement. In 1868, she founded the New England Women’s Club and was one of the founders of the New England Women’s Suffrage Association. Her sense of duty was not limited to sacrifices in war.  She was motivated by a broader view of “civic virtue.”

Would she approve replacing the word die with live?   And what would that communicate to today’s listeners and singers?

The Battle Hymn of the Republic reminds us of the sacred (hymn) call (battle) that sustains our country (the republic).   Its spirit, I believe, calls forth the responsibility of every citizen to sustain the country’s evolving experience of freedom, which we call democracy.

Relevance for Credit Unions

But what does this have to do with how we carry out our roles in the credit union system?

The Friday before this Memorial Day weekend I received an email from a colleague which said simply:  “This is wild” and included a link to an article in CUToday:

The story summarized the intent of fifteen credit unions operating for generations to merge.  In some cases, the arrangers of these transactions would receive increased compensation from the event.

What did the sender mean by This is Wild?  While I do not know what the words intended, I suspect they reflect a deep concern with this wholesale abandonment of legacies of efforts and resources created by previous members and their leaders.

Those credit union ancestors paid forward the fruits of their labor so the current generation might prosper and build on their efforts.  Instead, these leaders chose to hand over their members and inheritance to another, unrelated organization.

Howe’s third verse describes judgment:

He has sounded forth the trumpet
That shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before His judgement seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him;
Be jubilant, my feet                                                                 His truth is marching on

I believe the writer’s email reaction is raising this ultimate question of values: Can a democratic credit union financial system survive when leaders so easily lose the will and inspiration to continue?  In the future, will any cooperative “truth be marching on”?

Version 2.0

Here is Mary Ann’s preferred wording of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

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A Case Study of an Industry Collaborative Initiative

 Earlier this year I described a trifecta opportunity for credit unions.   The three challenges were:

  • Tapping the entrepreneurial interest of the current college generation;
  • Supporting new credit union charters to plant  seeds for future relevance and growth;
  • Providing leadership to prioritize opportunities for those left behind (DEI) due to historical inequalities.

An example combining all three elements was Gary Perez’s efforts as CEO of USC Credit Union to create a project to charter student led credit unions at the 107 historically black colleges and universities across the country.

Recently I found the following program that would seem to be an ideal way to meet all three opportunities.   And maybe jump start Gary’s efforts.  It reads as follows:

 Student Internship Program 

The OCDCU 2000 College Student Summer Internship Program was the most successful to date. The program creates partnerships between low-income designated and other credit unions (large or small) and college juniors and seniors to train and develop a pool of potential future credit union managers. The students selected are business, finance, or marketing majors. 

 With technical assistance grant stipends, the 2000 summer intern program matched 29 college student interns with 58 different credit unions. Stipends provided the interns totaled $72,500 in 2000 compared with $67,500 in 1999 for 27 students. 

Source:  pg. 16 NCUA 2000 Annual Report

 Wouldn’t a relaunch of this joint initiative now be a powerful signal of the credit union system’s responsiveness to today’s special challenges? Especially in an increasingly tight labor market?

 

 

 

 

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Should NCUA Be Helping with the Country’s Immigration Surge?

The unprecedented flow of persons seeking to enter the US in the Southwest is at very high levels. This is a situation  that concerns many people of goodwill.

Should NCUA leadership be seeking full time staff to go on temporary assignment to help out?

If confirmed that this volunteer recruitment effort is underway, the situation raises important questions. These include:

Who at NCUA approved this request and under what authority?

How does the effort assist the credit union system which funds all the agency’s activities?

If NCUA can spare these “volunteers” for months at a time, how critical is their role in the agency to begin with?

If this is a proper action, why is it being done with no transparency?

The Cooperative Way

Finally, if the situation is so urgent and just, why not ask credit unions to participate?

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the agency opened its office to volunteers and former employees to man telephone lines answering member calls and coordinate industry recovery efforts.

Few would turn away when asked to help one’s fellow human beings. But NCUA should follow the appropriate authority when asked to deploy its “independent” agency resources. More importantly, as a government agency such actions should be done with full public disclosure.

The Collaborative Advantage

On many occasions credit unions have  provided collaborative solutions to strengthen their system.  The resource sharing and mentoring programs as well as the credit union funded NCUSIF and CLF configurations are some examples of agency-industry joint efforts. Volunteer capital is a cooperative advantage and value.

Increasingly however, NCUA leaders have pursued unilateral actions without industry participation or, when asking for comments, do what was proposed despite substantial objections.

Individual volunteering is the American spirit at its finest, whether the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or thousands of non-profit and charitable endeavors.  It is an unfortunate precedent for leaders in an independent agency to privately promote an activity, apart from its mission.  And for senior leaders  to then solicit their employees to take part.

The agency must be transparent; this is not simply an internal matter.  For it deploys personnel hired and trained with credit union’s fund for activities unrelated to the agency’s purpose. NCUA is not a private business or organization, but a congressionally defined institution.

Moreover, should something go awry, NCUA employees should have the confidence their good intentions are known and supported by the industry they chose to serve.

There is a right way and a wrong way to request staff to volunteer no matter how worthy the cause. Doing so secretly impedes necessary, open discussion and could bring unintended consequences tarnishing positive intentions.

 

 

 

 

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America’s Most Responsible Credit Unions

A headline like that would certainly get lots of attention. That is exactly what got mine: only it actually read, America’s Most Responsible Companies.

The January 14, 2021 article was based on an analysis by Newsweek and Statista. Companies were ranked on the three criteria of the ESG corporate model, environmental, social, and governance. The process included a pre-screening of a large universe of firms, as well as in-depth corporate social responsibility (CSR) reviews, and a consumer survey.

Companies were given a score out of 100 and ranked accordingly. With a score of 93.2, HP placed first as America’s most responsible company. The top 20 included nine tech firms. General Motors received the top score for social as the only firm with women as CEO and CFO.

The full methodology used by Newsweek is described here. The initial pool of over 2,000 companies was narrowed down to 400 which were then evaluated in a four-phase process. One phase was a survey of 7,500 U.S. consumers plus a review of the companies’ published key ESG performance indicators.

Is a Credit Union Responsibility Analysis Needed? Possible?

The purpose of the ESG ranking is to provide another, vital perspective on corporate performance beyond the traditional financial and stock price benchmarks. This recent model has been a lens used increasingly by large investors such as pension and mutual fund managers. Many companies are now publishing these additional indicators to enhance investor and public confidence in their business plans.

The primary rankings published on credit unions today are by size (assets, members, branches, etc.) or financial ratio performance—ROA, growth, or net worth.

Recently, like the corporate world, there are efforts to publish DEI statistics-diversity, equity and inclusion–for the credit union’s staff and board. This data has become more important as all organizations respond to systemic inequalities increasingly called out by events. Yet this focus is not unique for coops.

As cooperatives, credit unions have positioned themselves as more socially aware and responsible than traditional financial providers. Rate comparisons and how much members save annually are examples of financial value. But should there be more than simple financial markers if this unique design is doing something significant versus competitors?

A Cooperative Scorecard

Almost a decade ago CU*Answers, a CUSO 100% owned by credit unions, developed a cooperative scorecard providing a self- assessment created using the seven cooperative principles. The complete template is available here. The CUSO offered $50 for credit unions to send in their scores to encourage participation.

The scorecard’s purpose was to “operationalize” and measure the seven principles and to assist credit unions who wanted to enhance their cooperative advantage.

The form even included a scoring summary ranking:

Your Score How You Did
More than 104 points Congratulations, you are a shining example of a true cooperative.
80-103 points Not bad, not bad at all. You are doing well.
58-79 points Need to work a little more on your core cooperative values.
Step 1: find someone who scored higher than you and ask how they did it.
Less than 58 points You are a cooperative, right?

Today some of the key performance questions under the seven cooperative criteria might need updating, for example in responding to Covid. Note that none of the measures are based on financial performance. Rather the scores are indicators of cooperative conduct.

The Need for Cooperative Measures

With credit union performance today graded almost solely by financial outcomes, the result is an erosion of differences with other financial options. The cooperative “brand” is blurred. Member purpose becomes just “a little better financial deal.”

Most importantly, the advantages of the cooperative charter are minimized, becoming just a 7-part marketing slogan on lobby posters. When in fact the customer-owner relationship has been pivotal in creating the competitive advantage credit unions enjoy today.

A scorecard, thoughtfully designed, is more than a form to create another set of rankings. It should revitalize leaders’ attention on what makes credit unions unique. These coop measures can then translate into key performance indicators in business plans.

NCUA’s CAMEL ratings focus almost exclusively on financial performance, even when rating M, or management. This lens does not include critical measures of cooperative success, which in turn underwrite most financial outcomes.

This measurement gap is an opportunity for the system’s leaders to really “open eyes” to the credit union difference. And as the corporate headline above suggests, demonstrate each credit union’s “responsible” cooperative role within the American economic system.

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Experts Predicting Doom–A Perennial Practice

The year 2007 was not a down year for credit unions. Slow sure, but there was no talk of an economic collapse on the horizon. And the housing market was booming.

Nonetheless the temptation is always present to burnish one’s reputation by forecasting doomsday. The issues and trends pointed to by these speakers are not false. Rather the straight line conclusion that everything is going to fall apart because these concerns will go unaddressed, is where the logic fails.

Regulators have a particular attraction for using this clarion call. They are supposed to monitor risk, but sometimes the futures they portray seem more to justify additional resources, not from  experienced insight.

Responding to challenges, seen and unforeseen, is what every manager tries to do. So listen, but then apply common sense.