By Vic Pantea, CU*Answers

I’m a good news, bad news kinda guy. Look at CUSOs: We're growing in numbers. We've probably created more net worth in the credit union industry than we can even imagine. I'm sure there's probably hundreds of millions, or perhaps billions of dollars in net worth, within the CUSO community as well. When you walk into the CUNA GAC, I’m just blown away in the exhibit hall. Most CUSOs you see have multistory exhibits, furniture and second floors.

Obviously, CUSOs are doing great. I'm here to tell you, we've lost our way.

I had the opportunity to take a look at CUSOs at kind of the turning point, in the 80s and 90s. CUSOs were basically focused insurance and brokerage business. But in the 2000s, when we started to finally recognize the opportunity with the crucial regulation that allowed us to do whatever we wanted to do. We recognized the value proposition of what CUSOs could and should be, and that's what I wanted to get across. But, along the way, we started to look more and more like our for-profit competitors.

Read more Underground thought leadership, delivered biweekly to your inbox. Sign up for our FREE newsletter today!

CUSOs need to be looking at more and more at how they impact the lives of members. We constantly see news releases about millions of dollars in distributions taking place between CUSOs and their owners. So that's a great message and one great way to distribute, but how are our other tactics being employed to distribute the net value or the value proposition of CUSOs today? Are we doing the things we need to do to help people owners and nonowners execute? What are we doing about reducing fees? When's the last time, you actually went in and looked at your CUSO to reduce fees – and not just at your initial engagement or renewal time? No? Find other ways to waive fees during the year. Can you just lower the actual fee? We need to reconsider how we participate in the member relationship with our credit union owners. How much of that is going back to impact the member?

Could CUSOs loan funds to credit unions, so they can earn extra cash or above market rates? How can we launch more CUSOs and credit unions? We are seeing some of this – I am working with about 15 groups very closely on this, more than I’ve seen since the 1970s. CU*Answers gives de novo credit unions two years of core processing and some ancillary services for free, plus other discounted rates. We’d like to build a consortium of partners who want to help support new credit unions and make their expenses as low as possible. We, CUSOs and credit unions, must revisit our philosophy, our motives and our purpose to help generate more value within the cooperative credit union community.

Vic's blog is adapted from his remarks at the #Underground Collision in San Diego. Learn more about Mitchell Stankovic's credit union Underground Collisions here!