Letters to Congress

Daniel A. Mica's Letter to the United States Senate and U.S. House of Representatives Regarding Forrester Research Announcing Results of Its 2006 "Customer Advocacy" Survey

May 24, 2006

The Honorable Bill Frist
United States Senate

Dear Senator Frist:

I am writing to call your attention to the attached news release from Forrester Research announcing results of its 2006 “customer advocacy” survey. The survey asked 5,000 consumers which type of financial provider “does what’s best for its customers, not just the firm’s own bottom line.”

Once again the consumers surveyed by Forrester ranked credit unions at the top of the list. Credit unions received more than 67% positive responses, essentially tied with USAA insurance, which received 68%, as you will see in the attached bar chart from an American Banker article summarizing the survey results.

Impressively, credit unions scored twice as high as the nearest bank named in Forrester’s survey and drew higher marks from consumers than such well known financial providers as Geico, AAA, State Farm, and Fidelity.

As American Banker noted in its May 22 front-page coverage of the survey, retail banks again “did poorly” in the rankings. Retail banks such as JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo were near the bottom of the list. Indeed, the highest ranking bank, Wachovia, rated only 36% of respondents who said the bank does what’s best for its customers rather than its bottom line.

We at the Credit Union National Association feel the Forrester survey is more strong evidence that credit unions are fundamentally different from for-profit banks both structurally (as not for profit cooperatives) and philosophically (as institutions whose mission is service to their members). We would respectfully urge you to consider these key differences and the Forrester Research results when banking industry representatives try to claim that today’s credit unions have somehow “morphed” into banks. We certainly do not buy that argument—and neither do the nation’s 88 million credit union members.

Sincerely.

Daniel A. Mica
President & CEO

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