A humble suggestion to consider your credit union option(s)
Some people might be surprised to discover that I actually am a big supporter of mutual
and cooperative organizations which produce quality goods and
services solely for the benefit of their memberships. This is
particularly so within the financial services area.
.
Executives of corporate-owned banks are supposed to be loyal to the
interests of the shareholding owners of the bank's parent holding
company (and their failures to do that can be rather spectacular as we
have seen so very clearly in the last several months). Managements of
corporate banks typically are interested in little more about you as a
customer than the extent to which you can be profitable to the bank
over time.
.
The credit
union model on the other hand is designed for the cooperative
mutual benefit of a membership. The difference of the relationship
between you and the company can make a difference (sometimes a starkly
significant difference) in how the credit union delivers financial
services to you.
The thing with credit unions is that you have to qualify for the
membership that is specifically defined in a credit union's charter. I
suggest checking out any credit unions for which you might qualify and
see what kind of value you can get for your deposit dollars. Guidelines
for finding credit unions for which you might qualify (including a
locator tool): http://
The author of a series of articles on consumer banking at the Motley Fool website noted that the banking industry really hates credit unions, and indeed I very often shake my head at the banking industry's efforts to kill off competition from credit unions. I'd like to see the credit union model thrive despite the banking industry's efforts.
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An extra note for the financially nervous and/or diligent
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Credit
unions are generally smaller than retail bank companies who do not have
to define a specific membership. If you are particularly concerned
that a credit union will fail without returning your deposited monies
please recognize that the U.S. government insures deposits in most credit unions quite similarly to those in FDIC-insured banks.
the National Credit Union Administration actually runs an insurance fund separately from the FDIC insurance funds.
