Breakfast With World's Largest Bank and World's Coolest Credit Union

So a friend and I were sitting and enjoying breakfast together talking about kids, our wives, and work. What is interesting is that he works for one of the world’s largest banks and I work for one of the world’s coolest credit unions. Much of what we talked about was easily transferable between the two of us. We both had teenagers and both of us agreed it was so much simpler when they were just five years old. We talked the old days when we had worked at some other place together and how much fun we had (ah yes…the sense of nostalgia was deep.)

As things always do we talked about work but in a guarded manner (after all he is with the world’s largest bank and I am with the worlds coolest credit union.) But as we talked I could not help but notice how all of his points seemed to focus on the sheer scale of the operation and on the numerous levels of management in multiple cities needed to operate on that scale. On the other hand I had just spent my prior afternoon helping a call center agent who had a member who needed some help with a bill pay question. The agent had done all she could do to help the person and needed to see if there was more that she could do. So she took it to her manager and within two minutes I was involved and within five minutes the issue was resolved and the member was thrilled.

Now as I thought about the contrast of my friends workplace and my own my first thought was that our workplaces are simply the result of the type of financial institutions we work for. He worked for a company that has over 280,000 employees (more than the whole Marine Corps) while I worked for a company with less than 450 people. Yet, as a member owner I have never noticed the difference in the level of service provided to me. I realized it was because of the cooperative nature of credit unions as a whole. We share resources like ATM networks and branch networks. So imagine my surprise when I did some research and came across the following numbers: 10,000, 34%, 12.3 %, 7,200,000,000. 

I did some quick research and came across the following on the blog http://giraphcu.wordpress.com

• 10,000 equals the number of ATMs credit unions have over the world’s largest bank.
• 34% is how much higher typical CU savings accounts are over banks.
• 12.3% increase in business lending credit unions made in 2008 when many other financial institutions stopped lending to small businesses.
• $7,200,000,000 is the amount of money saved by members last year by simply using credit unions.

So what does this all mean ? To me it is being part of something that is closer to me while not having to give up the benefits of being part of something bigger. It's about being an owner of something that fits me and my needs and not the needs of some distant executive who doesn’t even know what the weather is like where I live.