What's your business model going to be for the 21^st century?

As Ron Shevlin, senior analyst at the Boston-based Aite Group, recently told CU Water Cooler Symposium attendees, it's time for a credit union business model reboot.

Here's why:

• Declining return on equity, which for the financial services industry as whole has hovered at about 8% since dropping from an industry high of 13% to 15% from 1993-2007.
• For credit unions in particular there has been a decline in overall gross income, with revenue falling nearly 4% during a period when membership was actually growing.
• Across the generations three in 10 have simply not been involved in their financial lives. Gen Y at 33%, turned out to be the most highly engaged in their financial lives.

"Those are warning signs and growth, cost reduction and pricing changes aren't going to cut it," Shevlin says. "I don't think today's business model is going to provide the engine to get us back to historical levels of ROE. We as a society have changed and the paradox here is as we become a more highly educated, affluent, self-service do-it-yourself, few of us are actively managing our financial lives."