Branches are not going away. That's a firm belief of Nathan Rogers, a longtime financial services executive who has spent many years in shared branching - a feature he calls a significant credit union strategic advantage.
Yet now, amid the pandemic, many credit union executives are talking. about pulling out of the shared branching networks. Why bother with it if nobody is using the branch?
Ask Rogers and he sees that thinking as short-sighted and in fact now is the optimum time to offer shared branching and thereby provide more member service without the expense of opening and staffing a branch that may in fact have an uncertain future.
Back up a step. Know that there are around 1850 credit unions participating in the CO-OP shared branching network. They have around 6000 branches collectively and that is bigger than any branch network in the US. Feast on that. The credit union shared branch network is the biggest in the country.
Along the way in this conversation we also explored the credit union shared ATM network - another industry advantage that often is inadequately explained to members and prospective members. And we discuss new trends in digital banking and the branch of the future.
Listen up here.
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