>I also resent your use of 'rape' in that context. I can't wait till the PC fad blows over.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10628060 and marked it off-topic.
Difficult Times at Our Credit Union
151–158 of 158 posts
Re: Difficult Times at Our Credit Union
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I move out of SF, what happens? That's the problem for a lot of people.
Nothing happens, I bet. I'm still with a credit union that was affiliated with an employer I left over 10 years ago. That employer doesn't even exist anymore, but I still bank with that credit union. Once a member, always a member. EDIT: I think I misunderstood your point. If you're talking about being close to a branch or whatever, then that's also not necessarily a concern. The closest branch for my CU is 350 miles…
Indeed. The coop network is great for branch access and ATMs, and like many CUs, mine refunds the fees foreign ATMs charge up to 8 times a month.
Re: Difficult Times at Our Credit Union
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
That $349 figure is misleading. It is comprised almost 100% of fixed costs, like executive salaries and buildings, which do not vary with the number of accounts. Banks charge fees because they seek to maximise profits. Those fees don't have to relate closely to costs. I'm not saying this is good or bad, just that it is so.
I don't know if you read the website or want to provide some kind of source for the cost breakdown, but my source suggests it's 50% branches and arms, 20% call centers and payment, 20% security and compliance and 10% product development and sales. I guess you can call those fixed costs. No mention of executive salaries, maybe product development? If they were just fixed costs, and banks were making money off small ac…
> No mention of executive salaries
From the article you linked: "Overhead costs, including executive salaries along with security and compliance expenses, also account for about 20% of the costs."
I'm not saying that the marginal cost of maintaining an additional account is zero. I'm just saying it's closer to zero than it is to $349/year.
Re: Difficult Times at Our Credit Union
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the banks would probably calculate that it would be cheaper and easier to manipulate the regulatory environment to inhibit credit unions than to compete on honest terms Would? No such calculation is necessary because banks are a state-maintained cartel everywhere - the opportunity for fleecing the masses with those sneaky & outrageous charges is just too delightful to pass up. If people actually had a cheaper and b…
It starts before the ballot box, winning over voters. And that takes money.
You know they pretty much always break their promises, and you understand that your vote doesn't bind them in any way.
You see things getting worse each year..
So do you not understand that voting doesn't actually solve anything?
Obviously, winning people over into participating in a pointless ritual doesn't help either, nor do the bribes a politician takes to fund the publicity necessary to win people over by lying to them.
Think about it.
Re: Difficult Times at Our Credit Union
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the banks would probably calculate that it would be cheaper and easier to manipulate the regulatory environment to inhibit credit unions than to compete on honest terms Would? No such calculation is necessary because banks are a state-maintained cartel everywhere - the opportunity for fleecing the masses with those sneaky & outrageous charges is just too delightful to pass up. If people actually had a cheaper and b…
1. Banks are not state-maintained. You can argue that 'too big to fail' means government support for them, but support is not control. 2. Banks charge roughly the same fees for the same reason grocery stores charge roughly the same prices - competition. 3. Coercion is a straw man when considering government activity. Anything you don't like becomes coercive. I don't like that my roommate wakes up before me and distur…
> Banks are not state-maintained. You can argue that 'too big to fail' means government support for them, but support is not control.
That wasn't my claim. I said banks are a state-maintained cartel everywhere, and that implies preventing competition.
One way to prevent competition is to make sure the cartel banks can't fail. It's difficult to compete with a business that gets handed unlimited amounts of other people's money when it's about to go bankrupt.
> Banks charge roughly the same fees for the same reason grocery stores charge roughly the same prices - competition.
Do you sincerely think banks couldn't charge less for their services? :) Because that's what it would take for competition to have resulted in the current price level, as anyone on HN should be able to understand.
I'll stop here now because I suspect you're not being honest.
Re: Difficult Times at Our Credit Union
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny that you mention the UK, which used to have a number of mutual bank-like institutions called 'building societies'. Many of these became banks about 20 years ago, and former members (holders of mortgage or deposit accounts) received windfall cash payments in exchange for their shares. I don't recall what drove the transformation, but It wouldn't be surprising if those who made the decisions had some upside…
In part the de-mutualisation was driven by the short term gains that could be realised if it happened (at the expense of the long term customers). This led to people signing up as customers, purely so they could vote for this to happen and receive a windfall, so you're right, though it sounds like you thought it was a small number of decision makers at the top, rather than an insurgency of outsiders taking advantage…
Yes, I'm curious to know whether the votes were initiated by insiders (executives or long-standing members) or by 'activist carpetbaggers'. AFAIK carpetbaggers' activity was just opening an account and, when the time came, casting a vote.
Re: Difficult Times at Our Credit Union
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is that you are using your customer deposits to make the loans. When the loans default and they aren't paying a high interest rate to compensate you for the higher default rates, you don't have the money to redeem those deposits at face value, and then the NCUSIF (FDIC for credit unions) will have to step it. The regulators would rather prevent that in the first place.
Right, I understand why they couldn't make the loans (regulators not allowing it). But if someone were to establish themselves in a way that could make the sorts of loans this credit union wanted to, they wouldnot be predatory . > If you are making loans to high risk clients, this is predatory lending. What I was specifically replying to. High risk loans are not predatory loans. Predatory loans are high risk, high in…
A bank has to be self sustaining, its deposits must cover portions of its debts. It can't work if it is based on the changeable altruism of an individual. As actually even happened in this case, hewasn't prepared to endlessly indemnify the loans, which is something he could do as a private lender.
Re: Difficult Times at Our Credit Union
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where the laws are more relaxed, credit unions can be competitive. The Desjardins credit union (technically a federation of credit unions) based out in Quebec is a good example, they have 5.8m members and 254B$ of assets. They even have branches in the US, but those are chartered as banks and owned by the federation. That said, it's hard for a cooperatively structured to be nimble and the bureaucracy and internal pol…
Banks are known for their nimbleness, lack of bureaucratic red tape, and lack of internal politics?
It's all relative, but yeah, any of the big 5 canadian banks are immensely more nimble than desjardins which is internally structured as a federation of credit unions each of which is technically independent.