By Steve Wofford
If you want to understand what’s happened to credit unions, don’t start with balance sheets. Start with purpose. Ed Filene didn’t help create credit unions so they could “compete” with banks in the modern sense. He helped create them so ordinary working people would not be helpless in the face of money.
That was never supposed to be a slogan. It was a moral design—an alternative to a financial system that often left people with no leverage and no mercy. Sarah McNeil’s article in the CU Daily invoking the voice of Ed Filene is really a warning that credit unions weren’t meant to become “small banks with friendly branding,” but something structurally different in whose interests they operate.
Drifting into the Dangerously Familiar
Over time, though, many credit unions have drifted into something dangerously familiar. They still call people “members,” but often function as if they are “customers.” Growth becomes a scoreboard. Asset size becomes a proxy for success. Efficiency becomes the defining virtue. And “member value” becomes something assumed rather than measured.
The drift is rarely malicious, but it’s real: the cooperative model gets pulled toward the same financial logic that it was created to counter.
The Spirit of the Argument
That’s why Kohl’s Strategic Pricing Framework (SPF) supports the spirit of Filene’s argument. SPF isn’t about maximizing profits for their own sake. It’s about restoring discipline and intentionality to the place where credit unions reveal what they really believe, pricing.
Pricing answers questions leadership can’t avoid forever:
- Who is being subsidized?
- Who is paying for it?
- Which products build long-term member value, and which quietly destroy it?
If those answers aren’t known, then a credit union isn’t managing fairness; it’s managing appearances.
The Real Argument
The Filene argument isn’t “profit is bad.” It’s that profit was never supposed to be the point. Credit unions need financial strength because they’re responsible institutions, but that strength is supposed to serve member outcomes, not replace them.
SPF helps make that possible by exposing cross-subsidies and true costs so leadership can make conscious decisions instead of accidental ones. Subsidy isn’t wrong in a cooperative system—sometimes it’s the mission—but subsidy without measurement isn’t generosity. It’s negligence, because it forces one group of members to quietly carry another without transparency or intent.
The Questions Ed Would Ask
If Ed Filene walked into a modern credit union today, he probably wouldn’t be impressed by size or growth awards. He’d ask whether the institution is still protecting people from being helpless in the face of money. If the answer is yes, then the credit union has to align its pricing practices with its mission.
That’s what SPF enables: not maximizing profits, but optimizing member value on purpose, with discipline, fairness, and long-term sustainability.
Steve Wofford is CEO with Kohl Analytics Group.
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