The Credit Union Cooperative Model: For What It's Worth...

   

  No longer a movement, no longer an ideal?

"We sold out the magic of financial cooperatives - [link Chip Filson blog] - not for the sake of being understood for our contribution and confidence in people acting together.  Rather the goal became putting a number on who we are... " 

The "new/new" leadership...  "strive to be evaluated and on par with ideals that are not the drivers of our member-owners’ success."

"These market driven criteria have a hard time with the ideals of community ownership ... where acting and living the purpose is far different from cashing in. "

"This is not a good look for cooperatives. Their “worth” was never meant as one ready to be traded, abandoned ..." 

😎 Every credit union member should stop and take a "look at what's going down"...

Irrelevant? Worth less? ... Worthless?

Credit Unions: "Taint" What They Used To Be...

   Folks are starting to "nose-tice"!

 

✅ The credit union movement may no longer be a "movement" as one commenter recently noted; adding: " The term movement is a problem in and of itself. It shouldn’t be used anymore - it discredits an industry already fighting for relevancy."[AnonymousJuly 29, 2025 at 9:43 AM]

Whether you agree with that statement or not, the rapidly advancing trends of commercialization and consolidation within the credit union movement are a fact. And, these processes of commercialization and consolidation do discredit the traditional practitioners within the credit union movement.  

The future relevancy of traditional credit unions is indeed in danger. Credit unions are no longer the non-profit, member-owned, democratically-controlled, locally-focused cooperatives they once claimed to be. 

The hypocrisy is self-evident in mega-bank purchases, growth for growth's sake, the pursuit of market share, and the board/CEO emphasis on "me" rather than "member". 

"One is known by the company you keep"; and, competitors, politicians, and members are awakening to "the new industry". The taint of distrust of "the brand" will eventually become universal.

😎 Do we now live in an era of fake news and phony credit unions?!?

  "Well, we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto" ... that's for sure!