How Banks and Credit Unions Differ

In response to the recent discussion (Letters, 9th September), the previous finance minister, Michael Noonan, had allocated between €500 million and €1 billion to aid the credit union movement following the economic collapse. The same downturn compelled taxpayers to shell out a staggering €64 billion for the banks’ bailout. In gratitude, around 180 bank branches have shuttered across Ireland over the previous six years, mirroring the number of total credit unions in the nation.

Conversely, the key enduring contrast between banks and credit unions lays in the latter’s welcoming approach to their clientele, a quality conspicuously absent in banks who often treat us as mere annoyances. I recently walked into a bank requesting to open a current account, only to be handed a piece of paper by the so-called “customer relations/support assistant” with a code to facilitate a digital account opening experience from home.

Despite their shortcomings, credit unions remain hospitable, member-owned entities. Banks, on the contrary, display insatiable greed in their relentless quest for shareholder profit, offering no local interface to discuss matters of business or personal loans. After having learnt from their past errors and adopting stringent regulation and supervisory systems, it is high time that credit unions are given free rein to compete with the traditional banking system – a thought evidently disquieting to the banks, if one considers the intense lobbying efforts to limit the credit unions’ service expansion. – Yours sincerely, TOMÁS FINN, Ballinasloe, Co Galway.

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