A strategic menu for credit unions in 2026

Seven strategic choices for focus, relevance and resilience

Photo by Yan Krukau

The beginning of a new year is when organizations often take stock. What worked, what didn’t and what deserves focus moving forward.

With that in mind, we have put together a list of seven strategies, initiatives or areas of focus that we believe can help credit unions elevate their performance in 2026 and position themselves more strongly for the years beyond.

This is not a checklist. It is a menu.

Experience and research both suggest that attempting too many strategic initiatives at once rarely leads to success. Focus matters. Choosing two or three priorities that align with your members, your community and your capacity will dramatically increase the likelihood that real progress is made.

If you want the short version, here it is: focus on member and community financial education. Every option that follows either depends on it, is strengthened by it or fails without it. Even choosing just one of these paths, pursued seriously, would represent meaningful leadership.

Strategy 1: Move the needle on adult financial literacy

Despite decades of effort, adult financial literacy across the U.S. and Canada remains stubbornly low. Research from FINRA and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center consistently shows that only about half of adults can correctly answer a small set of foundational questions about interest, inflation and risk diversification.

These are not advanced concepts. They are the minimum skills required to function safely in a modern financial system.

To put that into perspective, here is the same three question test researchers use to assess basic financial literacy.

Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2 percent per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow?

• More than $102
• Exactly $102
• Less than $102
• Don’t know

Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1 percent per year and inflation was 2 percent per year. After one year, would you be able to buy more than today, exactly the same as today or less than today with the money in this account?

• More than today
• Exactly the same
• Less than today
• Don’t know

Do you think the following statement is true or false?

“Buying a single company’s stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.”

• True
• False
• Don’t know

If you hesitated on one or more of these, you are not alone. These questions are designed to test basic understanding, and many people struggle with them. 

Credit unions see the consequences every day. Poor borrowing decisions. Vulnerability to fraud. Low or inconsistent saving. Financial stress that cuts across product lines and life stages.

Which is why improving financial literacy is not an abstract ambition. It is an operational one.

Strategy 2: Grow Gen Y, Gen Z, Gen Alpha and Gen Beta membership

Credit unions across the U.S. and Canada remain disproportionately weighted toward older generations. Silent Generation, Baby Boomers and Gen X dominate membership, while Millennials and Gen Z are underrepresented relative to their share of the population. Gen Alpha and Gen Beta are already forming attitudes toward money long before they open their first account.

This matters because membership age today determines relevance tomorrow.

Younger generations are not financially disengaged. They are learning about money constantly, but largely outside the credit union system. Social platforms, influencers, peers and algorithms now shape financial understanding earlier than institutions do.

The challenge is not awareness. It is early relevance. Trust is built before the first loan, not after. Credit unions that wait until young adults are ready for products often arrive too late.

Strategy 3: Help members and families navigate digital money, fraud and financial manipulation

Money, technology and persuasion are now inseparable.

Children are growing up in a digital environment where money appears early and often, in games, subscriptions, influencers, targeted advertising and platform economies. At the same time, adults increasingly rely on algorithms when they save, borrow, invest or respond to perceived risk.

For many families, this environment is unfamiliar and difficult to assess. For children, it is normalized. For adults, it is often invisible.

This gap between how financial decisions are shaped and how well people understand what is shaping them is where harm occurs.

Children encounter money long before they encounter financial education. Data is harvested, spending is nudged and value is abstracted behind digital interfaces. Adults interact daily with artificial intelligence through credit scoring, fraud detection, investment recommendations and personalized marketing, often without knowing when an algorithm is making a decision, what it optimizes for or where its limitations lie.

Fraud exploits this same gap. Modern scams are organized, adaptive and psychological. Seniors face impersonation and romance scams. Younger adults face investment fraud, account takeovers and social engineering attacks. Losses continue to rise and embarrassment often delays reporting.

Alerts and fine print are necessary, but they are not sufficient.

Understanding how digital persuasion works, why scams succeed and when automation should be questioned is now a core financial skill.

Strategy 4: See the competitive and systemic threats clearly

Some of the most significant pressures facing credit unions are structural rather than cyclical.

Externally, predatory lenders, including payday lenders and check cashers, continue to expand the monetization of financial fragility, even as regulation tightens in parts of the U.S. and Canada. Internally, consolidation, branch closures and the gradual disappearance of micro and single branch credit unions risk hollowing out the cooperative system.

This strategy is not about resisting change. It is about recognising erosion.

Physical branches still matter as community anchors, particularly in remote communities and underserved areas. Small credit unions still matter as employers and as trusted institutions embedded in local economies. Their disappearance is not neutral. It reshapes access, trust and financial resilience at the community level.

Strategy 5: Become social marketing superstars and reclaim the language of money

A growing share of financial learning now happens on social platforms. Much of the language is shaped by hype, shortcuts and confidence without competence.

Credit unions do not need to out entertain influencers. They need to out educate them.

This strategy is about consistency and clarity. Choosing the channels where key audiences already are. Publishing regularly. Explaining money plainly, without shame or sensationalism.

In an environment saturated with noise, calm explanation becomes a competitive advantage.

Strategy 6: Become trusted financial integrators for newcomers and immigrants

Immigration remains a primary driver of population growth in both the U.S. and Canada. Many newcomers arrive financially capable but system disadvantaged, unfamiliar with local credit systems, lending practices and consumer protections.

Without guidance, capable individuals can make avoidable mistakes that delay stability and wealth building.

Credit unions are well positioned to support financial integration through education, culturally aware communication and community partnerships. The opportunity is to make this role visible, structured and repeatable.

Strategy 7: Prepare older members for longer lives and longer retirements

People are living longer and retirements now commonly span 25 to 35 years. Yet many financial plans still rely on outdated assumptions about lifespan, healthcare costs and independence.

Members often underestimate longevity risk and overestimate how straightforward retirement decisions will be.

This strategy broadens retirement literacy beyond accumulation to include decumulation, care planning, housing decisions and intergenerational considerations. Trust matters deeply at this stage of life.

What these strategies have in common

On the surface, these strategies address very different challenges. Generational change, digital risk, fraud, community erosion, immigration and retirement readiness.

But they share a common root.

In each case, the issue is not access to financial products. It is gaps in understanding, confidence and decision making at the moment those products are used. These challenges persist not because people lack options, but because they lack usable knowledge when it matters most.

This is where credit unions retain a decisive advantage.

A single imperative for 2026: install financial literacy as infrastructure

The strategic response does not require seven separate initiatives. It requires one operating decision: implement a financial literacy program and use it deliberately.

Make it available to staff and members. Integrate its concepts into everyday interactions, from teller counters to lending offices and investment discussions. Embed it in outbound communications and public education. Extend it through partnerships with schools, colleges and local employers.

When financial literacy becomes part of how a credit union operates, rather than something it occasionally publishes, the effects compound. Staff confidence improves. Member decisions improve. Fraud declines. Trust deepens.

This is not about doing more. It is about installing capability.

A final thought for the year ahead

This is not an invitation to do more. The real work of 2026 will not be measured by how many initiatives are announced, but by which ones are chosen, resourced and sustained.

No credit union should pursue all of the strategies outlined here. But choosing even one, and addressing it seriously through education, would represent meaningful leadership.

The challenge is choosing deliberately and following through.

Quiz answers:

• Q1: More than $102

• Q2: Less than today

• Q3: False