GLASGOW, Scotland – Brian Branch, who will take over as the World Council’s CEO on Aug. 3, urged credit unions as they look ahead to remember there are trade-offs as they seek scalability and efficiencies.
“I see associations coming together, just as credit unions are sharing back office expenses. There will always be trade-offs,” said Branch in remarks before WOCCU’s World CU Conference here. “There are greater efficiencies, but the credit union ethos is working in the community with individual members.”
Branch noted that for much of his career the standard operating procedure has been to build a branch in a new community and then use a marketing program to bring the member to the branch. But as credit unions in Ecuador, Kenya, Haiti, Mexico and other countries are demonstrating, mobile technology has turned that procedure on its head. “Technology offers us a great advantage to take the credit union to the member where they live and work,” said Branch.
