The Crystal Ball: Will Fewer Credit Unions and More Technology Make a Better Industry?
by Ron Daly
If you don’t spend a few coffee breaks each week reading The Financial Brand, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Jeffry Pilcher, One-Man-Journalistic-Juggernaut, does a great job breaking down the industry from either side – banks, credit unions, and beyond. Best of all, there’s really something for everybody. Finance folks? Check. Marketers? Check. Fortune tellers?
…wait, fortune tellers?
Jeffry Pilcher has spent this past week showing us a glimpse of the future…and it might be a little scary for some.
One article that’s turned a lot of heads is “Credit Union Industry Outlook: 5 Years Back, 20 Years Forward“. In it, Pilcher predicts that, at the current rate of retraction/”asset shift”, half of all credit unions around today will be gone by 2032. The smaller credit unions are dying, hemorrhaging members and losing assets year after year. The larger credit unions keep growing, grabbing up new members and more assets and swallowing smaller credit unions. The bright side? Credit unions will continue to add members AND assets, growing into a stronger, if much smaller, force. Branch growth is slowing for the big guys, and is actually negative for smaller credit unions.
Now, anyone can tell you the future is tricky to pin down, especially on only five years of evidence. But the reasoning behind Pilcher’s prediction is strong and it’s not impossible to imagine the industry going this way. Not disappearing, mind you – this isn’t any indication that credit unions are dying/are dead. But things aren’t looking great for “the little guy”.