By Frank J. Diekmann
After some additional rummaging around my travel bag and with the assistance of AI in deciphering my own handwriting, here are some more (admittedly dusty) items from the Reporter’s Notebook:
Is the Automobile Giveaway Losing Some of That New Car Smell?
Have credit unions unintentionally demonstrated how economic times have changed?
From almost the time the first credit union charter was granted, the go-to giveaway when it came to making a big headline-grabbing splash has always been an automobile. Whether it was in the form of a short-term lease or the title free and clear, when a credit union wanted to mark a big anniversary or grab eyeballs for its auto lending campaign, you just couldn’t go wrong with—use your best “Price is Right” announcer voice here–“Brand New Car!”
But maybe there’s a new big-time giveaway item growing ever-larger in the rear view mirror?
Given what’s been happening with inflation and the cost of living, something else may have become more of a premium for the average consumer/member. Instead of giving away a car, Suncoast Credit Union recently awarded a member a year’s worth of groceries as the grand prize in a promotion. The only budget challenge for many CUs now when it comes to giving away groceries, of course, is that they are more expensive than cars.
What’s In One CU’s Name? Everything!
Is there a credit union in the country better at leveraging its name than 7 17 Credit Union in Northeast Ohio? In the latest example of making its brand first and foremost, 717 Credit Union said its Financial Wellness Night at the Ballpark will take place at a game beginning at 7:17 p.m. on July 17 (that’s 7/17) at the newly named 717 Credit Union Field at Eastwood.
Separately, as part of a new partnership and a new monthly networking series, Coffee and Connections, attendees recently received digital-only access to The Business Journal for seven months and 17 days.
A Swing and a Miss? Not If You Never Swing
Speaking of leverage, I’d say this has been a swing and a miss for credit unions, but it’s more of a called strike. here is yet another missed opportunity for the country’s not-for-profit financial cooperatives. Perhaps you’ve heard this mentioned a time or three, but the nation’s credit union trade groups never pass on the opportunity to note that approximately 140-million Americans (rumor has it a few people belong to more than one) belong to a CU, which would seem to represent some pretty collective clout.
Yet it was the nation’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase, that recently announced a multi-billion dollar, multi-year “American Dream Initiative” that is said will help “expand opportunity to millions of Americans and future generations through targeted investments in local communities across the United States.”
Everything that falls under the Dream umbrella can be found here, including its six areas of focus, most of which are going to sound pretty familiar to the citizens of Credit Union Land. And therein lies the problem. Why don’t credit unions own this space collectively? Much of what JPMorgan Chase says it’s doing—business and growth entrepreneurship, housing affordability, financial wellness, local financing–is bread-and-butter to credit unions, yet the nation’s biggest bank is taking the credit for inventing sliced bread here.
No doubt JPMorgan Chase was already doing much of this already and simply opted to package it all under a snazzy, altruistic title, “American Dream Initiative.” I would not like to know just what little portion of my life I have used up reporting on some person or trade group inside the movement talking about “telling the credit union story,” and yet no one ever tells it—I think, because no one seems to understand exactly what that story is.
But a big bank knows its story, even if it has to rewrite it. And it’s telling it.
You’ve Heard About ‘Slow & Steady?’ Well…
There’s slow growth, and then there’s sssslllllooooowww growth. In Pennsylvania, Aliquippa Teachers FCU recently announced it would be merging. ATFCU was chartered in 1937, and over the 90 years that followed it grew to $131,327 in assets, or about $1,477 per year. It had 122 members at the time the last school bell rang and class was dismissed.
A Good Question to Ask at the Board Table
As part of its mission to keep credit union leaders abreast of what’s going on outside their silo, the CU Daily has had ongoing coverage from across the financial landscape, especially fintechs, which have quickly become the financial institution of choice for many consumers.
Under the headline, “Is Your CU’s Board Build for 2026? Or 1996?,” Michael Cannes, the strategy, risk and assurance partner with Rochdale, posed this question: “Who at your table is advocating for the 28-year-old member you don’t have yet? Who understands why that potential member chose Chime or SoFi instead of you?”
If you take a look around your board table and the answer to Mr. Canne’s question is “uh, no one,” the next question needs to be, “Why is our strategy to appeal to members who are at home watching Third Rock from the Sun and Frasier?” And then you need to find someone—ideally, more than one person—who has never heard of either of those two shows and who can be that advocate.
Some Parting Advice
NCUA Chairman Kyle Hauptman’s term expired in 2025 and he’s been nominated to serve on the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), with a term set to expire on October 24, 2029. He is now waiting on the nomination of John Crews to pass the Senate.
Regardless of who that new chairman will be, he or she is going to need a new chief of staff, and while they may have their own candidate in mind, Hauptman encouraged those interested from within credit unions to apply for the job. He used his own experience as an example. When Hauptman was nominated for an NCUA board seat, Sarah Bang essentially cold-called Hauptman and asked to be considered as his policy advisor. Bang, who is well-known to many in credit unions for her 40 years of experience in the industry, including at CO-OP Financial Solutions and as president of what was once Financial Services Cooperative, reached out to Hauptman, even though she had no government experience. But as Hauptman noted in recent remarks, he had government experience but knew little about CUs.
“My term is over. At some point there will be other board members. I would request that when the new board members are announced they are going to need somebody,” Hauptman observed. “If they are DC people, that’s helpful, but they are probably not first language-fluent credit union people. My successor needs a Sarah Bang. I encourage you do that.”
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at the CU Daily and can be reached at [email protected].
