Even in our digitally-driven, hyper-connected world, consumers across generations still need access to in-person services in the communities where they live—especially when it comes to financial services.
When a small business owner in Skagway, Alaska, needs to deposit the day’s transactions, she needs a convenient local branch. And when a homebuyer in Tombstone, Arizona, is ready to discuss mortgage options, they deserve the reassurance of an in-person meeting with a lender rooted in the community.
That’s true in every community and for every consumer across the country—but it’s absolutely critical in small, rural, and remote places where access to experts and services can mean the difference between financial success and failure.
We know this is true because we’ve seen it up close. As the leaders of credit unions serving wide swaths of Arizona and Alaska, we hear from communities all the time about their frustrations with limited financial options—and their fear of being left behind. They want to bank on their terms: sometimes using mobile apps, sometimes using an ITM, and sometimes visiting a branch. Our mission is to provide access however and whenever they want.
But in many small and underserved communities, in-person access is getting worse, not better. Financial deserts are a growing problem across the country, driven largely by bigger banks abandoning locations that generate inadequate profits—especially since the pandemic. From 2019 to 2023, according to the Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, bank branches across the country fell to 90,691 from 96,104, and the number of areas identified as banking deserts has increased from 3,401 to 3,618.
Lack of access to in-person financial services causes serious economic harm, making it harder for consumers, small businesses, and local governments to manage finances and conduct daily operations.
But we know from personal experience the essential role credit unions play in resisting this trend. Credit unions’ not-for-profit, member-driven mission allows us to maintain branches and provide a level of service that members quite literally cannot get anywhere else.
With our commitment to building community and putting people over profit, credit unions play a unique role in guaranteeing in-person banking services. We are the bulwark against the growth of financial deserts and the loss of financial freedom.
Consider the work Credit Union 1 (CU1) is doing all across Alaska—a state known for good reason as “The Last Frontier.” CU1 maintains five branches in communities that are largely inaccessible by road. You read that right: five of our branches can be accessed by sea, air or dog sled—but almost never by car. And without CU1, all five would be financial deserts with scant access to the services that allow communities to function.
When the town of Kotzebue opened a new grocery store earlier this year, the community recruited CU1 to open an in-store branch. That sounds like business as usual for a credit union—except that Kotzebue has a population of 3,200 and lies 33 miles north of the Arctic Circle. And again, no roads to Kotzebue!
Nearly a thousand miles away in Skagway, a tiny Alaskan town with a big tourist trade thanks to docking cruise ships, locals were increasingly frustrated with the lone bank in town’s inability to process wire transactions and other necessary services. Seeking better options, community leaders reached out to CU1. We listened, and within just four months of securing a location, we opened a full-service branch this year.
In Nome, CU1’s local branch offers in-person staff and services alongside a remote video connection to the lending team in Anchorage so that mortgage origination is possible above the 64th Parallel.
The particulars are different, but the story is much the same in the Arizona desert, where Vantage West Credit Union is preserving in-person banking options for folks who need them. That includes a branch in famous-but-remote Tombstone—the former boomtown-turned-ghost town famous for its gunslinging history.
Some 1,300 people call Tombstone home and many more drop in every day to see sites like the O.K. Corral and Boothill Graveyard, but the for-profit banks that set up shop during the silver rush in the late 1800’s left town long ago. Vantage West’s Tombstone location is a financial oasis in the desert, ensuring residents from the surrounding region, business owners and visitors have local access to essential banking services.
Vantage West’s financial coaches take the time to help locals put together plans to achieve their financial goals, build personal budgets, and raise members’ awareness of new fraud schemes so they can protect themselves. Just knowing there is someone in your own community who is in your corner, is a game-changer.
This all goes back to our core mission and essential value proposition as credit unions. Because credit unions are member-owned and community-driven, we offer services that meet the real needs of our members and communities. And because we’re not solely driven by profit, we can make choices about branch locations and member service that other institutions simply won’t.
From the Alaskan tundra to the literal deserts in Arizona, this is what sets us apart. Our members recognize this, they appreciate it, and we’re all stronger for it.
Co-author Sandra Sagehorn-Elliot is the President and CEO of Tucson, Arizona-based Vantage West Credit Union. Vantage West is a member of the Backbone Coalition.
