Comments on: All credit unions should…

By: Winter

Winter — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:54:27 +0000

I guess I come down on the Financial Cooperative side of the street. I think cooperative bank sounds like an oxy moron, especially if you were ever a victim…er, customer of Wells Fargo.

There is nothing cooperative about a bank or my experience with a bank.

By: Dan Veasey

Dan Veasey — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:06:48 +0000

Morris I love your CU idealism. Maybe it was the timing in history when CU’s came into existence that lead to their ascension. If that’s true then timing may very well one day lead to their demise. I’m not much of a history buff, anyone know what was going on economically in the 1810′s?

How about “Money Clubs”? We could think up all kinds of golf promos to go with that. Or what about “Beat the Banks with a Money Club!” with a picture of a beaten up banker running from a gang of credit union savers. I hope that doesn’t get me sued. (If any bankers read this, my comment is meant in all good humor. Feel free to poke back.)

By: Morriss Partee

Morriss Partee — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:16:31 +0000

Hmmm. Interesting. Then why didn’t actual cooperative banks take off the way credit unions did/have? Was there an advantage because of their name? I guess not. :) Or did they have the perfect name, and haven’t succeeded more than they have for other non-name-related issues? I have no idea, I’m just raising the questions.

I wonder what the whole picture of cooperative/mutual banks is in the U.S. I wonder how many there are, where they are located, and total customers/assets they have.

So if there aren’t too many of them, we should lobby congress to have them join the CU-fold, then we can all just switch over to the Cooperative Bank name?

I guess my point is this: It doesn’t really matter if credit unions ought to be called cooperative banks. Someone beat us to that name by a hundred years.

And perhaps it’s precisely BECAUSE we don’t have “bank” in our name that we’ve succeeded as much as we have. The fact that we don’t have bank in our name reinforces that we are an alternative to profit-driven banks.

By: Trey Reeme

Trey Reeme — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:58:31 +0000

@mmpartee: I don’t believe any CU will actually attempt it (even if regulatory hurdles didn’t exist). Don’t expect mine to :) I do, however, believe it’s more descriptive of what we do than “credit union.”

By: Morriss Partee

Morriss Partee — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:17:54 +0000

Cooperative bank is NOT available. Cooperative banks were founded in the 1810s, and surprisingly, with the same mission as CUs. (Does that mean we need a new type of institution in 2010? The cycle of history repeats itself...) Anyway, check out the wikipedia entries Cooperative banking and Mutual savings bank.

By: Morriss Partee

Morriss Partee — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:32:04 +0000

Cooperative bank is NOT more accurate than credit union. While a cooperative bank might be nearly indistinguishable from a credit union, it is an entirely different entity that plays by a different set of rules and is regulated by the FDIC, which has nothing whatsoever to do with credit unions.

And you are making it sound like credit unions have a choice about their name. By law, credit unions must use the word “credit union” in the name, and federally-chartered credit unions must use “federal credit union” in their name.

Diluting the distinctive credit union terminology only serves to further blur the difference between a credit union and a bank. We’re already so close to being the same, we need MORE points of differentiation, not less.

By: Trey Reeme

Trey Reeme — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:30:06 +0000

@rshevlin “credit union” requires further explanation for non CU members.

I explain what we do to people who don’t know (or who have an understanding of what we offered and who we could serve pre-1980ish) as “we’re just like a bank, but we’re owned by our members.”

Cooperative bank is more accurate than credit union.

By: Ron Shevlin

Ron Shevlin — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:56:12 +0000

And changing the name would solve what problem?

By: Trey Reeme

Trey Reeme — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:33:22 +0000

@Robbie – Yep, I just wish that the term “credit union” could change without the structure having to. Ahh, unintended consequences.

By: Trey Reeme

Trey Reeme — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:27:08 +0000

Thanks, Dan – in Photoshop CS3 Extended, I opened that pic, which my wife took of me and the baby.

If you click on the Filter menu item, then the Artistic menu item for “Cutout” it’ll do it. I then cropped it down and switched it out with my old graphic here.