About
Who am I?
I’m a sub 30 year old male that has spent the last few years working in and around the banking and credit union industry. I have heard the tales of credit union greats and seen what some would call the bottom of the barrel. I’ve seen the efforts of small town banks and have all of my personal accounts with one of the big ones.
What’s my take on banks and credit unions?
At their current state, credit unions as a whole are no different than banks to the end user. Each have their share of sellouts and standouts, but in my eyes that’s the bottom line.
Why did I start this blog?
Great question. Honestly, I think the cu blogosphere needs this perspective. We aren’t going to be holding hands and singing kum-ba-ya over here. The “common thread” that resolves many disagreements in the cu world does not exist here.
Now don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy many of the cu blogs, and the people behind them are top notch. However, these blogs have their roots so deep in the cu world, that they can’t be (outwardly) skeptical of the industry as a whole. They have to buy in. Their jobs/businesses are at stake.
Why do I hide behind this alter ego?
My professional efforts keep me involved in both the banking and credit union worlds. While I will do my best to keep this blog on the up and up, in its infancy I’d hate to make a mistake that would undermine my career. I suspect that the anonymity is only temporary, but who knows. That’s the beauty of this “interweb”, if my views have merit, they will stand on their own.
Plus…who doesn’t want an alter ego? It’s super cool!
The CU Skeptic 
I like the concept of your blog here. I appreciate a skeptic and one that punches holes in concepts to reach reality. Look forward to the conversation. Any reason you are not identifying yourself in this forum?
Doug,
Thanks for the kind words. As to the identity question, great question. I’ve added a section on this page to address it.
Thanks again for the comments. I look forward to some great dialogue to come.
Whoever you are, I love this.
Welcome to the conversation! I think you’ll find that there are a lot of people out there who share your thoughts, even (especially?) among the CU bloggers. We’re always questioning the relevancy of credit unions and most of us agree that they have a tremendous potential but that many have lost their way.
If we sing Kum-ba-yah a little loudly it’s because we want to highlight the things we love about the industry and spur them on to greater things.
@Trey: Thanks for reinforcing the idea behind this little project. (I usually don’t ‘love’ on a first comment, but happily accept it.) As for the execution, we’ll see how it goes.
@Matt: Thanks for the welcome. Good to know I’m not totally alone in my thoughts. I completely understand highlighting the good, I just think there’s room for a perspective with a few less “gold stars” and a few more “timeouts”.
(Ha…timeouts…in my day it was the belt…day #3 of the blog and I’m already going soft.)
Look forward to more to come!
Actually I love your writing. Not your anonymity.
@Trey: Noted. Anonymity: 1. Anti-Anonymity: 2.
This is pretty sweet. There needs to be this voice in the wilderness to keep credit unions honest.
We went this direction a little with our site – thats how we came up with the name CUHype.com. We wanted to dispell some of the hyping that takes place in the industry and get down to creating change (literally and figuratively).
We still do hold credit unions to task, but must temper our comments a little for obvious reasons.
So, good job, keep it up and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
Alter egos are super cool!!!!!!
I think I understand. At a point in my CU career I too was extremely skeptical about CU’s. In fact I withdrew all my money from my CU once and opened a big bank account and even started sending resumes to banks. I was ready to call it quits! Soon after I realized that I was just being childish and I came back to my CU and never followed up on those resumes. I’m still a little skeptical at times, but I think we have to be if we truly want to better ourselves and our organizations.
I’m really excited about your blog! Let us have it, and I’m sure we can drum up some really neat debate.
Starting this is one of the best things I have seen happen in this industry. I like all the honesty that is coming our way, thanks! I love the industry, but I hate watching what is going on in it. There are so many intelligent people in it, unfortunately, it does not seem they are being listened to. One of the term that is working against us is: “because we always did it this way.”
Hi CU Skeptic,
I ran across a comment you might be interested in. It’s from someone else who is apparently quite skeptical of the credit unions in his country of Barbados. Here’s the link.
Ok Skeptic-
You’ve grown on me. I like the challenge you present. It’s brilliant angst against complacency. Although, I’m not sure it’s the movement as a whole you should be skeptical about. It is a great movement worthy of great deeds. Perhaps it’s the people (you, me, us) who could be doing more great deeds that the movement is worthy of.
What I like here is that you are challenging us to do just that.
Skeptic, greetings from Ireland and well done on your blog. Seems we may we share a common goal in surfacing some things people would rather not comment on. See irishcuvoice.com for some perspectives on the real challenges faced by Irish credit union who are struggling to find a way into the 21st century.
Monty
[…] excellent OpenSource CU post on CUs being an Industry vs. Movement. When subsequently the CU Skeptic came on the scene, and got a certain degree of flame-mail for his stance and anonymity, I had to […]
Funny how you require that we ID ourselves, but you hide behind anonymity for the sake of your career. Whatever credibility you might have is lost when you refuse to stake out your views in public. Personal transparency is as important as organizational. Sorry, while your views may add to the discuss, they ring hollow without attribution. Steve