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Comment by Der_Einzige | Hacker News Reader

Why should I care when credit unions have always treated me better? Banks don’t need to exist in a world where credit unions work.

Credit unions need to be more directly tied to “left wing thought” in general. Most Bernie types hardly even talk about the role that banks (even public banks like this one) play in screwing the little person over beyond meme stuff like housing which isn’t even in their control.

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Outside of Wells Fargo - which is just god awful in so many ways - I'm no longer getting a different experience from banks vs credit unions. Sometime before covid I feel like the line between bank and credit union blurred and eventually went away, in relation to customer experience. I have money scattered across many institutions; I get the same treatment at both bank and credit unions now.

From a technology perspective, bank & CU core systems all have approximately the same schema. The front and back offices are virtually identical business patterns. Most of the difference resides in the regulatory framework, forms, etc. Field of membership and ownership models are probably the biggest impact here.

My sole complaint of my credit union is their obliviousness about MFA. Being a smaller org, I imagine they lack domain experts. A shortcoming I'd expect the trans-galactic guild of credit union (or whatever) to address for its members.

BND's purpose isn't to be a consumer bank.

Part of what BND does is BND provide services to other local consumer banks who provide more consumer oriented services.

> BND's purpose isn't to be a consumer bank.

I think it's trying to also offer consumer services? The article intro says > It is the only government-owned general-service bank in the United States.

In the 'Services section it says > direct lending to private borrowers

And their website has details on a range of basic products for the public: https://bnd.nd.gov/bank-services/public/checking-savings/ https://bnd.nd.gov/bank-services/public/online-and-mobile-ba...

BND has consumer services, but they're not competitive with day to day banking services provided by local banks.

I knew people with accounts there, it was more of a matter of pride that they did their banking there than any other reason.

Because some companies need 500 million in credit or more.

How is BND screwing the little person?

It’s not, but credit unions don’t either and they’re more “left wing” ideologically.

>> How is BND screwing the little person?

> It’s not, but credit unions don’t either and they’re more “left wing” ideologically.

Are you just being idiosyncratic? "State-owned business" (like the BND) sounds pretty "'left wing' ideologically" to me.

And why do I care whether my financial institution is more "left wing" ideologically?

More: If they are, why would I regard that as a good thing?

Ideology is the last thing I want from a financial institution.

I absolutely do want my financial institution to have an ideology which is centered around customer service rather than profit extraction. I switched to credit unions a long time ago and I will never go back.

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