Lenticular Images: Two views of credit unions

by. William Azaroff

Remember when you were a kid, you’d open your box of Cracker Jacks and hope for a cool prize, and were a little disappointed when instead you found a little photo tucked into a sealed plastic envelope. The photo was kind of cool—if you looked at it from one side it had one image, but if you tilted it to the other side, it would have a different image. A neat trick.

This kind of image, by the way, is called a lenticular image, two images printed on a raised, scratchy surface, each viewable from a different angle.

It struck me recently that credit unions are like that. Two totally different images printed on a single card.

You look at a credit union from a certain angle and we’re dedicated to community, focused on doing good things with our members’ collective assets. We can help our members because there are no shareholders siphoning anything from the relationship. No third party shifting priorities away from the member and their needs. We can give them advice and products and services in their own best interests. We care about community and are guided by the principles that govern co-operatives all around the world.

Pretty amazing.

But hold on, look at it from a different angle and you’ll see a very risk averse culture, looking after its own needs more than the needs of the members. The Board and management hasn’t changed in, what, 27 years—no competitive elections, even though we claim to be democratic. We make lending decisions almost exclusively on credit scores, unwilling so much of the time to do the bold and right thing for people in our communities who are struggling. And if a community organization knocked on our door with an interesting partnership opportunity to help the community at an essential level, they wouldn’t even get their call returned.

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