The Future of the National Credit Union Brand

Credit unions have talked about developing a national brand for many years. The idea: to effectively compete against large banks, we need to present a single brand to the American public; one that rides over the thousands of individual credit union brands. That way, the public would recognize a consistent, national icon and gravitate to a credit union for services instead of, say, Bank of America.

Recently, I have heard discussions of national branding use the Sicredi model in Brazil as an example. Many of the credit unions in Brazil cooperatively market themselves under the Sicredi brand. The Brazilian consumer knows to look for that brand. That is not the case in the US.

But wait—there actually is a national credit union brand in the US. It is a cooperative that is owned and governed exclusively by credit unions. Thousands of credit unions participate in its services– about half of all US credit unions. Collectively the cooperative has 5,000 branches and 30,000 ATMs. It’s a growing national brand. The name is CO-OP Financial Services. 

You could make a case that if most credit unions were active participants in this national brand, the visibility and consumer awareness would be significant. Even though collectively credit unions have a mere 9 percent of the nation’s deposits, we could boast a true national presence in the form of thousands of singularly branded ATMs and branches. 

The really great part of this relationship is that the depth of the brand goes beyond recognition of a logo. The brand is actionable by the consumer. A member of this brand can conduct business at any affiliated branch or ATM. It’s not simply a marketing scheme. The member receives real value. The member has a reason to like the brand beyond a logo that recalls their fondness for their credit union. They can actually do something at any location where they see the logo.

Every year more credit unions are becoming part of this national credit union brand. It will be exciting to see national consumer recognition of the credit union brand continue to grow in the coming years.

By Bob Rehm, CUDE, VP, Sales and Service, Credit Union Resources, Inc.