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One thing that really needs to start taking hold in the public consciousness is that credit unions are far superior to banks in almost every way. They usually

• el_benhameen 5y ago
  I want this to be true, but when looking at both home and auto loans, the CUs around me were not remotely competitive on rates.
  • bombcar 5y ago
    Most credit onions just resell the loans anyway (ours doesn’t if it has a term 10 years or less, which got us some decent rates).
• jiggunjer 5y ago
  This seems very US centric?
  • SkinTaco 5y ago
    This is a comment about a bank in the united states, on a thread of comments about banks in the united states, replying to an article about banks in the united states, hosted on a website in the united states, that is visited primarily by people from the united states. It's wonderful that we have a lot of unique views from various backgrounds on HN. But expecting people to clarify every time they want to discuss something about the US is ridiculous. Imagine how insane I'd sound if I said the reverse in response to a comment you made about a bank in Europe, on a thread of comments about banks in Europe, to an article about banks in Europe, hosted on a website in Europe, visited primarily by Europeans.
• PascLeRasc 5y ago
  Every time I hear this I try a different credit union around me. Sometimes they have arcane rules like "oh you don't actually have dollars in this account. You have 500 shares. At this time you may sell shares back to the credit union at a rate of $1/share". Or recently a credit union in my area emailed me my password after I signed up, and then they kept sending me it in the mail as a reminder that I hadn't activated my account yet. There's a credit union at my local health foods store run by a professor who self-hosts their website out of there and customer service is just his office hours, so I think that'll be fun to try next.
  • immibis 5y ago
    FWIW this is how banks work. You always have shares. Sometimes they just pretend they are dollars. I am not a customer of one, but I assume that using a CU instead of a bank is like using Linux on your desktop instead of Windows.
    • _uy6i 5y ago
      CU and Bank both have shareholders. The shareholders of a credit union are by law/definition its customers/depositors. The shareholders of a bank can be anyone.
      • immibis 5y ago
        Yes, in a bank you have shares in whatever is left over after profit is taken. They try very hard to make it so your shares are worth the same amount as when you bought them, plus a known rate.
        • balderdash 5y ago
          That’s not how it works
• leetcrew 5y ago
  what kinds of services do you get from a bank/CU that cost money? I've been using schwab for a few years, and the only thing I've ever had to pay them for was the privilege of throwing away my money on a couple stock options. I've only ever had to contact their support for help with problems caused by a different financial institution, and I was speaking with a human within one or two minutes.
• pinko 5y ago
  This is still true of small credit unions, but over the last 30 years has become less true of giant credit unions in my experience. Large credit unions have have morphed into institutions that are nearly indistinguishable from banks, are run by the same executives (who move laterally back and forth between them), with the same culture, norms, and attitude towards customers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmembers. And, unfortunately, small credit unions are finding it harder and harder to compete given the necessary investments to keep current technologically and meet new regulations.
• danhon 5y ago
  Spoilers: My bank is a local credit union.