Editor’s Note: The largest credit union charter conversion yet will be put to a vote in November. Michigan Credit Union is seeking to convert their $1 billion credit union into a mutual savings bank. Randy Karnes, CEO of CU*Answers, asks what actions like this mean for credit unions. Are we, in fact, ignoring the competitive difference that makes credit unions unique?
Imagine this news story showing up in the Washington Post: GOP Offers Incentive To Vote … The Republican Party would like to encourage you to vote this November. If you do, you’ll be eligible to win a 3-year lease on your choice ofa 2005 Cadillac CTS or SRX, or one of five $1,000 cash prizes. Of course it doesn’t matter who you vote for, you’ll still be eligible to win.
What’s your initial reaction?
Now come a little closer to home. Lake Michigan Credit Union recently made this very offer to its membership in hopes that they will get out and vote for their proposed charter change to a federally chartered mutual savings institution.
According to Lake Michigan’s informational mailing, In order to proceed, the Plan of Conversion must be approved by two-thirds of the credit union’s members who vote on the plan. (Emphasis added.) Does this mean that if only100 people vote, that 66 people out of over 85,000 members can make this decision?
No matter how much this might bother us, Lake Michigan CU’s plans are not the problem. They are simply a symptom related to a spreading disease in the credit union industry. And I don’t mean charter conversions.
The industry is quickly losing its sense of being a cooperative. Many of today’s practices at the most basic levels, are not standing up to the test of members being true owners of the credit union.
A Need to Gut Check on Fair Play
My comments are not heading towards an argument that big credit unions are ruining the industry. This is about how every credit union structures its policies, procedures, and culture to respect therights of members as owners. To participate with an owner’s voice. To run for the board of directors. To be represented, even years after they’ve left the credit union.
The people who build credit unions over their lifetimes, and plan for that equity to be passed on to new members and potentially their own families, need to be represented by the current leadership of every credit union.
In no way am I encouraging rules or industry barriers to charter conversions. Nor am I implying that credit unions can be run efficiently by a committee of the masses. I am simply saying that the individuals who lead a credit union, either as volunteersor professionals, need to gut check themselves on fair play.
It can be as simple as whether board members are elected from the membership at large. In many credit unions today, to be on the board, you have to jump through enough hoops to make volunteering look like a lifetime career goal, and even then it’sup to a committee and not the members. Term limits are not the answer; marketing is the answer. A sincere effort to reach out and encourage credit union members to participate as owners is needed.
Walking the Talk
Most importantly, this falls on the heads of the professionals who lead our industry today. Our careers will not be secured without recognizing that the cooperative and volunteer spirit that was the seed for this industryis a competitive advantage. If we do not nurture this structure, declare it an advantage, and demand that we walk the talk, we will see credit union members flee to organizations where the owners are protected as stockholders.
Here in Michigan, many of the credit unions that have to coexist with LMCU have adopted a good riddance attitude. We’ll be able to kick their butt when they’re not a credit union anymore, they say.
They miss the point.
It’s not just the charter that’s becoming a bank; it’s 85,000+ members who are becoming bank customers. These members may have already missed the point. And potentially millions more will also miss the point if our industry doesn’t startselling itself on the advantages that set us apart.
If you’ve never read a packet that encourages credit union members to convert their credit union ultimately to a bank, you might be surprised. Here’s one example of great marketing, selling a great contest and effectively burying the details ina pile of paper. It follows all the rules. But it doesn’t feel right.