ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Once a bread-and-butter mainstay for many credit unions, a new report shows that only about 25% of employer benefits packages include joining a CU.
The study, from the Society for Human Resource Management, compares that finding to almost 70% of companies offering credit union membership as an employee benefit in 1996.
A report in Marketplace.org asserts that one of the reasons for the decline is that credit unions are becoming more like banks, and that there is confusion over differences between banks and CUs.
Marketplace.org also suggested that credit unions moving to community charters has likely had the biggest impact, making joining a credit union much easier than it was 20 years ago.