With today's economy still sputtering, credit unions–and just about any other organization across the nation–remain vigilant about cutting costs to survive and hopefully thrive when the economy returns to good health. In the meantime, credit unions are making every effort to keep their expenses in check while not sacrificing member service to maintain their value.

Surprisingly, even with the lingering economic woes, many credit unions are actually growing their memberships. That's great news for them, our industry, and the economy. But, unfortunately, there are a fair number of them that want to continue growing but cannot afford to because of the high expense of properly serving their expanding memberships. A couple of those costly overhead expenses include building and maintaining branches along with hiring additional employees to fill those branches. If they cannot physically expand to accommodate their growing membership, how do these credit unions continue growing–or simply retain their current members? It's a quandary for sure, but there is an answer. Shared branching.

Shared branching promotes the cooperative nature of credit unions to members. You can implement technology services galore, but there's nothing like brick and mortar that gives members the feeling that their credit union is always available to them. Shared branching can help a credit union's growth without the added cost of constructing buildings and hiring employees.