SAN DIEGO-Why isn't every U.S. citizen a credit union member in 2012?
That's what Salim Ismail, former VP at Yahoo, wants to know.
"I am very annoyed by your industry," Ismail told a gathering of credit union representatives here. "There is a marketing failure, and the name doesn't help."
According to Ismail, CUs must become product leaders, whereas today they are member focused. He suggested credit unions sponsor hyperlocal news agencies in their communities, with "Oakland Local" offered as an example.
Ismail is a proponent of "disruptive convergence," or rapid change to take business to new levels. He said society is being "rewired" to make rapid leaps more often.
"By evolution we are geared to think locally and linearly," he explained. "Until recently, from an evolutionary perspective, everything important happened within a day's walk. Today, the metabolism of the technology industry is changing. The cost to access technology is decreasing."
According to Ismail, CUs should "leapfrog the status quo" with a number of radical changes, including looking to appoint a teenager to the credit union's board of directors-perhaps the president of the local high school.
Other suggestions include offering a virtual currency that can be used within the local community (Ismail admits regulators might have a problem with that idea), or hosting electronic health records for a small fee.
"Many conditions exist today that prompted the creation of credit unions in the first place," he said. "But credit unions have something very valuable: trust."
