56% of Credit Union Execs Are Wary of Crypto
While the European Union (EU) embraces crypto, credit union (CU) managers largely do not.
This, as data in the April 2023 PYMNTS report, “Credit Union Innovation: Bridging the Cryptocurrency Divide,” a collaboration with PSCU, finds that more than half of credit union leaders (56%) say they are less adept at offering cryptocurrency products to members their.
Cryptocurrency remains a hot topic in the news, and while just under 1 in 3 US consumers own cryptocurrency (31%), those who do tend to take crypto into account when making a variety of financial decisions, including where to banks.
This points to a potential disconnect between what some credit union members want and what some credit union managers plan to deliver.
Observers believe that the more consumers are educated about crypto’s possibilities, the more willing they may be to experiment with crypto products. Half of consumers (50%) say one reason they don’t use cryptocurrency is because they know so little about it.
But credit union executives don’t seem convinced.
Many credit union executives are wary of offering cryptocurrency due to its volatility (66%) and relatively low penetration of digital assets as a payment method (50%).
There is also a feeling that cryptocurrency is a passing fad (43%) and that there is not yet enough information to decide whether investing in crypto will be worthwhile (25%).
PYMNTS data shows that across certain measures, the reluctance of credit union executives to promote crypto products and services only increases as time goes on.
For example, at the beginning of 2022, 56% of credit union executives cited crypto’s volatility as a factor in their reluctance – a percentage that jumped to 66% by the end of the year.
Similarly, 42% of executives cited a general lack of market acceptance of digital assets as a form of payment as a factor in their reluctance to offer crypto products and services to members in Q1 2022.
At the end of the year, after Q4 2022, the share of credit union executives who said the same thing rose to exactly half, or 50%.
Still, crypto’s appeal to its core audience remains strong. Nearly 6 in 10 millennials and bridge millennials in the US (59%) own or have owned cryptocurrency, making them the age group most likely to have owned digital currencies.
Get the report: Credit Union Innovation: Bridging the Cryptocurrency Divide
