Lending Perspectives: Will your credit union be a winner or a loser post COVID-19?
Observations that may help you answer that question.
Around the office over the last months, I’ve pontificated on the long-term impacts on the economy, jobs, industries and various companies from COVID-19. One of the terms I’ve used is disruption. There will certainly be lots of jobs lost and companies that go out of business. However, there will certainly be companies and jobs created from how our lives and consumer needs change. What’s uncertain? Whether COVID-19 will have a net positive or negative impact on jobs and how long the disruption will last.
If you think about our current economic situation and this disruption long enough, you’ll probably come to the conclusion there will be winners and losers on the other side. As credit unions, we believe with our collective heart that we should all be winners. But we all can’t win. I doubt the pandemic will slow a 30-year trend of credit union consolidation. It should only increase the pace of this change.
Over the years I’ve realized I’m a bit of an amateur economist. I come to a better understanding of our economy by trying to observe as much as I can and collecting anecdotal evidence. I’ve observed a few notable things from various businesses I’ve patronized (or tried to) over the last few months; here’s how we can use those observations to help us understand how well each of our credit unions may fare in the foreseeable future!
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