TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-Thanks to Bank Transfer Day, attracting new members is no longer the biggest challenge facing credit unions. But a new survey has found that getting consumers to understand the credit union difference is as difficult as ever.
Those are key findings from Credit Union 24's fourth annual Credit Union Industry Survey of CU leaders, which also indicates the economy is the greatest challenge facing CU leaders today.
In last year's poll, attracting new members was the group's largest concern, now this year it has moved down one spot. But when asked what is the biggest difficulty in attracting new members, respondents weighed in, as they did in 2011, that consumers don't understand credit union benefits over banks (72%).
The perception that CUs offer fewer services than banks (64%) ranked second as an issue with attracting new members. Both the lack of consumer understanding of the CU difference and perception that credit unions offer limited services were seen as larger issues in the 2012 poll, compared with 2011.
"There is still a large number of people who don't have a full appreciation of what credit unions can do for them," said Park. "We made some great steps forward in the past year, but we have long way to go."
'Not Completely Surprising'
Despite recent historic membership gains, membership growth dropped only one position. "That is not completely surprising. Ways to increase membership have always been top of mind with credit unions and they are still faced with that challenge, because, frankly, they are out-advertised by banks and have a lot of obstacles to overcome."
This year the economy moved back to the No. 1 issue. "CUs are still very concerned about their future with the volatile economy," Park said. Yet there is not quite the same level of concern, with only 56% rating the economy their top issue, compared with 70% in 2010, the last time the economy ranked as the no. 1 concern in the CU 24 poll.
Uncertainty around financial reform legislation (49%) was the third greatest concern facing CUs this year, and NCUA assessments were fourth (28%). More than half of the respondents (56%) this year reported they made changes to their interchange income model last year as a result of the Durbin rules, even though a majority of credit unions are exempt from the fee cap in Durbin. Conversely, a majority (66%) cited that they made no changes to their network relationships during 2011, while 33% cited they either did or considered adding or eliminating networks in response to the fluctuating economy and legislative changes during the past few years.
Point-of-sale transactions during 2011 continued the same year-over-year trend as in past years, with a majority of respondents (56%) citing an increased use of point-of-sale among their membership.
ATM-Related Findings
However, credit union leaders citing an increase in ATM usage was, for the second year in a row, ranked lower than "steady" usage-55% indicated that ATM usage remained steady year-over-year for their credit union, while 42% cited an increase.
Asked if they felt CUSOs should advocate legislatively and/or lobby on behalf of the credit union industry on Capitol Hill, an overwhelming 99% of credit union leaders felt that it was important for their CUSOs to do so. The survey was conducted in February and March. E-mail forms and one-on-one interviews at CUNA's GAC were used.
