In 1969, the credit union movement reached its peak: 23,866 credit unions across the United States. Nearly all were single-sponsor cooperatives - hospital employees, mill workers, church groups, federal offices, teachers, - tightly knit, deeply mission-driven, and fiercely loyal to the people they served.
Today, fewer than 4,200 remain.
Yes, some mergers made sense. Many single-sponsor credit unions lost their employer groups. Some struggled to keep up with rapid changes in regulation and technology. The Savings & Loan crisis of the 1980s brought heightened scrutiny and eventually NCUA capital requirements, which forced many small institutions to reevaluate their operational stability.
But let’s be honest: that’s not what’s happening today.
Merger of Equals? Or Merger of Egos?
Somewhere along the way, “merger strategy” drifted from necessity to convenience, and in far too many cases, to opportunity. Not for the member. For the executives.
The modern trend of “mergers of equals” often makes no strategic sense from a member-value perspective. The math proves it: as Chip Filson famously says…
Merger math is simple: 1 + 1 = 1.
We don’t get bigger. We just get fewer.
Fewer credit unions.
Fewer choices.
Fewer voices at the cooperative table.
Less diversity of field of membership.
Less innovation.
Less democracy.
And there’s another factor no one wants to talk about: the executive golden parachutes built into some of these mergers. The buyouts. The bonuses. The “transition packages.”
When the reward for merging is rich and the consequences minimal, it’s easy to see why the “greed train” has left the station - and is running right through the foundation of our cooperative movement.
A Movement That Forgot How It Began
If you Google “How to start a new credit union,” something interesting happens. None of the trade associations appear in the results.
This is… telling.
Even more telling? The “About Us” page of America’s Credit Unions - our national trade association has diminished our history to a merger. No Estes Park, Colorado, no Edward Filene or Roy Bergengren.
The merger between NAFCU and CUNA.
If that’s our story, then we’re in trouble.
But Here’s the Plot Twist: New Charters Are Rising
While the industry headlines scream consolidation, something remarkable is happening in the background: New charter applications at NCUA have nearly doubled - from 51 to 96 in just two years.
And these are not vanity projects. These are mission-driven groups serving low-income, minority, and underserved communities - the original DNA of the credit union movement.
This tells us something powerful:
People still believe in the cooperative model.
People still want local solutions.
People still want fairness, access, trust, and community.
They just need credit unions that actually show up.
The YMC Mission: We Help Credit Unions Avoid Unnecessary Mergers
At Your Marketing Co., we can’t stop executives from cashing out or boards from chasing scale for scale’s sake. We can’t stop bank purchases or rubber-stamped mergers that erase decades of member capital and history.
But we can do something else - something far more important:
We help credit unions compete so they never have to merge.
We help them reclaim their narrative, sharpen their strategy, understand their target, and build brands their competitors cannot copy.
We help them grow with intention.
We help them win.
Because bigger is not better.
Better is better.
So… Will Merger Be Our Story?
Only if we allow it.
Because someone has to remind this industry that the future of credit unions won’t be written in merger agreements.
It will be written by the credit unions who refuse to disappear.
And we’re here to help them tell that story.