I Joined a Credit Union

I have had a checking account at my bank for 20 years. When I first opened this account my bank was a statewide bank. I few years later a big regional bank out of Charlotte, NC took over the bank. My bank was taken over by a very big banking company based in San Francisco.

This very big bank got a lot of bailout money. I guess they used some of that to gain my bank, I am not sure. In fact, the change from my bank going from a regional bank to a part of a nation wide bank was almost unnoticeable.The biggest change was I receive a lot more junk mail from them.

I started to think about how my deposits here we being used. Are they lending money to local interests? Was there any way to know? How was the area benefiting from the deposits in this bank. It seemed to me that my big McBank really had to answer to the stock holders. Surging profits and a bailout just didn't seem right to me.

I decided to move my bank business to a credit union. Credit unions are non profit and member owned. The depositors are the members! The one I chose the members have to be residents of the surrounding counties in my area. The credit union benefits the members of my community.

Now the credit union is a little different than my old bank. The online services are not as high tech as the big bank. I was worried about ATM access, It has turned out that I have access to the ATMs at all of the location of a major grocery store chain.

I did have to call the credit union to ask a few questions. I was not on hold very long at all. I got a real person that lives here in my state. At the end of our conversation this real person gave me her direct phone number if I had anymore questions.

So far, so good.

Here is a link to find a credit union.