I was recently back in my homeland of Arkansas and I was paying attention to grocery stores and banks and what brands were most prominent. Yeah, when I'm driving by myself for 12 hours, this is the kind of stuff I'm thinking about.

Gone from my hometown are the old Arkansas State Bank branch, my grandfather's IGA grocery store and the third Walmart ever built. Instead, there are payday loan storefronts, Arvest Bank branches, bitcoin ATMs and Harps Food Stores. Don't worry, there are now two Walmart Supercenter stores in a town of 15,000 people.

While in Arkansas I met up with family, who also moved away years ago and rarely return, and we talked about boring adult things like where we bank and why. My dad, who lives in the Boston area, banks at the very-Boston-associated Citizens Bank. He banks there simply because they have branches everywhere, including inside the Stop & Shop where he goes often. "It's just convenient," he said. If you knew this lovely gruff man, you'd know he absolutely hates to be put out by things and people.

In this case, the Michael/apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

My brother and his family recently switched banks in Colorado because they hated the megabank they'd been with for years. While they came close to switching to one of Colorado's many credit unions, they selected a new bank based on branch locations and its mobile banking app.

While we were all there to take care of some family business, I was using the time to survey the banking landscape to see what options were in Northwest Arkansas for the people I know who still live there. It's a rather grim set of banking options in that small town.

In the past month I did a lot of research for my switch to a new credit union, while thinking about where I'd be living in the years ahead. I found myself exhausted/put out by the thought of switching credit unions based on where I lived at that moment in time and the field of membership requirements I'd have to meet.

I ended up gladly going with a credit union that has a nationwide field of membership and, most importantly, a fantastic mobile banking app. Until the past month, I hadn't realized how restricted I felt by the local credit unions I'd been with for the past 25 years. I had wanted more/better abilities to bank digitally and no geographic restrictions. Those priorities were essential to me – I just didn't realize it.

It was a switch that flipped in my thinking: Don't make me adjust to your credit union. Adjust your credit union to my life.

Increasingly, this way of thinking appears to be becoming somewhat of a normal thing. Taking a look at some research posted by our friends at PYMNTS, they published a nice bit of data about what people are wanting from their banking experience and especially banking apps.

According to PYMNTS, "While consumers want to use their banking apps to handle standard banking needs, there is a marked interest in using these apps to do much more than just simple banking. A growing share of consumers want to use their banking apps to handle almost all their financial needs, including making peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, finding ATMs and budgeting and tracking their finances."

The research points to a survey done by Citizens Bank of more than 1,000 consumers and 260 executives that found a "permanence of digital adoption" has taken place since the COVID-19 pandemic began. This permanence is, maybe not surprisingly, tethered to a continued need by consumers to have some kind of human interaction. To be clear, that human interaction can take place in-person, on the phone or through virtual channels, according to Citizens' survey.

"Nine in 10 consumers and 86% of business leaders said that they now do at least some of their banking via digital tools like mobile and online banking, up from 85% and 71% respectively in 2020. More than 70% of those consumers and business leaders said that they view these increases as permanent," according to Citizens Bank.

The point I found most interesting, and one that I suppose reflects the way I'm approaching my banking future, is this: "Business leaders and consumers are both looking for a bank that can service all their financial needs. Meanwhile consumers are looking for a bank that can help them live their life how they want to. Sixty-three percent of consumers said both that banks should help them with building and establishing credit and that borrowing money from their bank can help make their dream purchases – such as a home, car or vacation – more accessible."

Like I was saying, "Don't make me adjust to your credit union."

I think this comes down to credit unions' struggle with the field of membership regulations they must follow as well as the fact that the credit union system has slowly moved away from its origins of forming from the needs of a specific workplace with a "mom and pop" banking feel.

Credit unions have grown, mostly, to be able to function as commercial banks. In fact, the banking industry didn't really clock credit unions as a threat until some credit unions blew past the traditional "common bond" requirements that kept them geographically locked in.

The banking competition element was fully revealed during a speech at this year's Community Banking Research Conference, sponsored by the Federal Reserve. During a speech at the conference in September, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System's Michelle Bowman said, "Many credit unions now go well beyond the traditional 'common bond' requirements for membership and increasingly allow membership based on geography. Underscoring just how much credit unions are competing directly with banks, particularly community banks, is the recent increase in acquisitions of community banks by credit unions. Credit unions today are much more likely to compete directly with traditional banks offering the full 'cluster' of banking products and services than they did in 1995, which supports the argument that our analysis needs to give more weight to competition from credit unions."

To that, I say with a sigh, "Come on."

Using originalism to define the credit union system is backwards thinking. It's why my hometown is covered in payday lenders and not credit unions.

I appreciate the origins of this industry and I greatly appreciate the credit unions that have the vision to expand well beyond the original common bond horizons set by the founders.

I understand the necessity and importance of a locally-bound credit union with high school branches and stadium naming rights sponsorships. I'm also ready for the values and abilities of the credit union system to spread to a one-stop-shop on a nationally-available scale – like Kroger, but credit union-y.

Michael Ogden

Michael Ogden is editor-in-chief for CU Times. He can be reached at [email protected].