By Frank J. Diekmann
Hey, maybe it’s me and I’m the Grinch, but it seems there are a number of credit unions this holiday season born with hearts two sizes too small. I mean, if the holidays are supposed to be a time of generosity and goodwill toward men, why are so many credit unions using it to spread ill will toward their cooperative brethren—or in one case, the entire CU movement?
This isn’t the first time I’ve raised this troubling issue of credit unions directly or indirectly denigrating other credit unions in their public statements, but it seems worth unwrapping again given some of what I’ve been reading this Christmas holiday.
Specifically, some credit unions are using announcements of their year-end bonus dividends and loan interest rebates to not so subtly take some digs at other CUs—so why would you belong to one of those CUs?, they more than suggest.
Here are two examples from just this week:
- One CU attributed a statement to its CEO in which he said his credit union’s year-end bonus return to members was larger than “other credit unions that have announced givebacks.”
- Another CU said in announcing its bonus dividend that it is “one of the nation’s few credit unions to offer a member return.”
Even Ebenezer Scrooge is grumbling a “bah, humbug” at that one.
That latter statement is not just harmful, it’s just plain false. Plenty of credit unions pay out bonus dividends and loan interest rebates. CUToday.info has already reported on a half-dozen such announcements and in the month or so ahead we will certainly be reporting on more.
And then there’s the flip-side argument I’ve heard from many other CUs that get more than a bit frustrated every time this lump of coal shows up in their year-end stocking. They maintain that they don’t reward members at year-end because they instead reward members all year long by keeping loan rates as low as possible and deposit rates as high as they can.
And the real tree-topper, they will often tell me, is the other reason they don’t have a deeper stocking into which they can reach at year-end is they have waived many of their fees, even for members who aren’t cooperating (profitable) with the co-op (which is most of them).
So, if your CU has some sort of year-end bonus/refund, 'tis the season to celebrate, not denigrate.
It’s been a long-running management best practice in credit unions to recognize where silos exist within the operation so as to create better integration for the benefit of both the member and the organization itself.
That same best practice also applies to the CUs singing these kinds of carols this year within the credit union community, all of whom need to get out of their own silos and realize CUs are hardly the only (or biggest) trees on the lot and shoppers have plenty of options.
Cleaning Out the Great File of 2021
As 2021 comes to a close, I am continuing a tradition just slightly younger than Auld Lange Syne and cleaning out the reporter’s e-notebook. So, in no particular order or discernible patterns…
We’re Not Here for the Donuts
Observed by Stephen Bohannon, founder and chief strategy and sales officer with Alkami during the recent Underground Rock Festival event hosted by Mitchell Stankovic in Las Vegas: “What’s confounding to me is why is any member of the board is not tech savvy. If you hear that you need to tell them they are in the wrong business. We are not a bakery. We are in the financial services technology business.”
You can read more of his observations and others here.
And No Off Switch
Prepping his audience on what was about to come, security consultant Jim Stickley told a recent NACUSO Network audience, “I talk fast. Like clapping-monkey-on-crack fast.”
You Have the Right to…Remain in Management
I couldn’t help but think after receiving yet another press release announcing someone in credit unions had been promoted to a position with the word “officer” in the title that it wasn’t that long ago in the industry, if there was an officer involved, a member was being arrested.
Zooming Right to an Irony
Inside an airport club lounge recently it was hard not to notice the installation of a wall of private booths inside of which people could have Zoom calls without disturbing others—or, more likely, to keep others from thinking it just might be a fun idea to be in your Zoom call background.
It was also hard not to notice the irony that Zoom and other videoconferencing technologies were supposed to take the wings out of business travel. And yet here were people using Zoom in an airport as the prepared to zoom off to see people.
Spelling It Out, Because, You Know
During a presentation to Filene’s recent big.bright.minds event in Irvine, Calif., Dr. Bill Maurer spelled out S-I-R-I and A-L-E-X-A every time he cited the technology in order to keep from activating audience-members’ devices.
As an aside, Maurer mentioned an interesting legal issue being raised by the prevalence of such devices inside homes, and that is what happens if the devices capture images from your living room or bedroom or anywhere else. Who owns that intellectual property? he asked.
“I don't actually know; it's probably Amazon,” he said. “But that's one of the kind of looming ethical issues that we'll be facing in financial services.”
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief of CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info. Mr. Diekmann is also author of several new book, including the brand new “The Last Lyric,” a humorous satire about a murder investigation at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in which every line of dialogue is either a classic pop/rock song title or lyric. Available on Amazon, Apple iBook, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. Mr. Diekmann is also author of a non-fiction compilation of the very best & worst he has seen and heard in covering more than 500 CU meetings and conferences, “501 Name Tags: How Everything You Need to Know About Business Can Be Learned at a Conference & Forgotten in the Trade Show.” It is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Lulu, and Smashwords.