Can credit unions get a piece of tech employee and customer growth?
While the movement missed the opportunity to start 'Uber CU,' Stanford FCU is pairing with Google to offer checking accounts in 2020.
Fifty years ago, a company such as Uber would have nurtured the formation of a new credit union as a driver “benefit.” Instead, the ride-share giant recently announced its own proprietary Uber Money banking services for drivers and passengers.
And Uber isn’t a standalone case. We don’t know of a single successful Silicon Valley startup that graduated to a full-fledged behemoth that has started a new credit union.
If credit unions are not participating in the formation of new companies and startups, what does this say for their future? How should CUs be looking to grow in the new economy if the companies driving growth are not sponsoring—and often are instead competing with—credit unions?
We’ve recently been asking ourselves if an inventive credit union could expand its field of membership to include the customers of, say, Facebook Libra. Notably, Libra users would be a group that’s already well-identified and pre-authenticated.
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