NORTH HAVEN, Conn. – In this age of the financial supermarket, when insurers, S&Ls, credit unions and others are seeking to be like your neighborhood bank, Connex CU wants to be known as the unbank.
The $365 million credit union has designed a marketing campaign trying to stand out from the local banks, inviting them online to share their thoughts about what frustrates them about banks.
The credit union’s message board, located at www.UnbankNow.org, has collected more than 40 posts, many of which take shots at banks for issues ranging from subprime lending to overdraft fees and other charges. "A bank’s concern is to make money for the shareholders, plain and simple. They do that by charging high interest rates to the borrowers, paying low interest rates to the depositors, and charging every possible fee they can invent to all of them," writes one commenter.
Connex says the campaign isn’t meant to be an attack on banks, but instead to explain that credit unions are a viable option during these tough times. The credit union is also trying to take advantage of the negative headlines that larger, national banks have recently received to try to increase their own market share.
