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The Credit Union Difference |
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The correct answer is:
A. Members are owners.
At your credit union, you're a member-owner. You and
other members collectively own the enterprise. A not-for profit
credit union doesn't make money to pay shareholders, but to benefit
members. That means you benefit from breaks on loan rates and better
savings rates. Fees help services pay their way; they don't enrich
paid members of a board and shareholders as at a bank. Credit unions
are cooperative businesses.
If you become a customer of a bank, you have no control of
your financial institution. As a credit union member, you and other
members can help nominate and elect your credit union's volunteer board.
They supervise the CEO who runs the credit union. At a bank, you
have no say over its board of directors or its CEO, or any other big
decision. Unless you are a stockholder, the only vote you can cast
at a bank is to take your business elsewhere.
Because a credit union is democratically controlled, each
member gets one vote regardless of how much business he or she does with
the credit union. At a bank, a well-compensated group of
stockholders make all the decisions that matter - like appointing the
board of directors and selecting the CEO.
Ok, now you're not sure you want all that responsibility
that ownership implies. Think about that for a minute. You
don't have to be a board member...you don't even have to vote if you don't
want to. But the point is that at a credit union, unlike a bank, you
make a choice whether or not to participate in the process. At a
bank, you have no choice - and no say.
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Get Better Rates, Pay Fewer Fees at Your Credit Union
The most current Credit Union National Association
(CUNA) fees survey confirms that credit unions offer more favorable terms
than banks for debit and ATM (automated teller machine) card transactions:
*Credit unions are somewhat less likely than banks to charge a
per-transaction fee for PIN-based (personal identification number) debit
transactions at the point-of-sale, and many credit unions allow a number
of free transactions before charging this fee.
*Credit unions are less likely than banks to charge members for using
non-owned ATMs, and the average per-transaction fee is lower for credit
unions than banks.
*Credit unions are less likely than banks to surcharge nonmembers for
using their ATMs, and the average surcharge is 20 cents lower. Many credit
unions belong to a surcharge-free ATM network.
How can credit unions afford to do this? Bill Hampel, CUNA’s chief
economist, sums it up this way: “Credit unions are a better choice because
they’re true cooperatives, owned by members. They exist to please members,
not some outside entity, as banks do. A significant ‘expense’ that banks
have--and credit unions do not--is to keep stockholders satisfied. This
frees credit unions to offer members more attractive terms in the form of
lower loan rates, higher interest or dividends on savings, and fewer and
lower fees.”
Copyright 2005 Credit Union National Association Inc. Information subject
to change without notice.
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Catching the Bad Guys: Credit Unions Look Out for
Members’ Safety
Terrorists, money launderers, computer hackers,
counterfeiters--it’s enough to make you stay up nights worrying if you and
your money are safe.
Credit unions play a role in helping the government bring these types of
bad guys to justice. Some of your credit union’s actions to help law
enforcement may be apparent, but credit unions take other
“behind-the-scenes” steps to help protect you and our nation.
All financial institutions must have systems in place to generally track
if there are unusual flows of funds into or out of both personal and
business accounts. A financial institution must have some idea of what a
person does or how the person normally uses the account to assess what is
suspicious activity. The Bank Secrecy Act requires credit unions and other
financial institutions to periodically look through their membership and
customer names for matches against a list of names under federal
investigation.
Credit unions also are required to comply with “OFAC.” OFAC isn’t a law
but rather stands for the Office of Foreign Assets Control, also part of
the Treasury Department. OFAC is responsible for making sure that
Americans comply with about 10 laws involving foreign trade sanctions,
money laundering, and terrorism financing. OFAC maintains a list of
people, organizations, and countries that are prohibited from receiving or
sending funds or from opening accounts. All financial institutions must
check the names of people who want to open accounts, take out loans, wire
money, purchase money orders, and conduct other transactions against the
OFAC list. If there is a match, a financial institution is required to
block or freeze property and payment of any funds, and to report the
action to OFAC. The “OFAC list” is publicly available on the Treasury’s
Web site.
Your credit union is committed to complying with all these laws designed
to help assure that America’s financial sector remains safe, sound, and
serving the financial needs of families and businesses.
Copyright 2006 Credit Union National Association Inc. Information subject
to change without notice. |
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