How credit unions’ competition could change

Being ready for the future can be tricky.

Right now, credit unions’ competitors face the same market challenges as credit unions themselves. This fact means credit unions could gain or lose some competitive advantages going forward.

Some big banks and online banks are making what Neil Stanley considers a strategic move that could hurt credit unions: They are not cutting the rates on savings accounts as drastically as they have in the past. Rates change daily, so these are not long-term commitments for these banks. As a result, some big banks are paying more on savings accounts than they are on short-term certificates of deposit, he reports.

“My hunch,” says Stanley, founder/CEO of The CorePoint, Omaha, Nebraska, “is that they’re thinking that online banking has surged during the crisis and in-person banking has fallen off, so they’re hoping to pick up customers from community banks and credit unions and using savings accounts to do it.”

How could the current, COVID-19-impacted competitive market play out in a way that paints a brighter picture for credit unions?

 

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