International Credit Union Day and Member Appreciation Week
Building Financial Health for a Better Tomorrow

On October 21^st, credit unions across the globe will be celebrating International Credit Union (ICU) Day^®. There are currently over 86,451 credit unions serving over 375,160,065 members on 6 continents from 118 different countries¹.

People Helping People

Being part of a credit union is being part of something larger. Since the first modern credit unions of 1852, credit unions have been about people helping people.  The first North American credit union was founded in 1901 by a reporter for the Canadian parliament who was, “moved to take up his mission in 1897 when he learned of a Montrealer who had been ordered by the court to pay nearly

C$5,000 in interest on a loan of $150 from a moneylender.”²

Our own Madison Credit Union was first established in 1936 as the City Employees Credit Union to help city employees get back on their feet after the depression. Loans were given out to people deemed ‘unqualified’ by banks and loan terms were set according to how much a member could afford to repay.

Building Financial Health for a Better Tomorrow

This year’s ICU Day theme “Building Financial Health for a Better Tomorrow” fits into the credit union philosophy of providing affordable and reliable financial services to people of all income levels. As credit unions, we strive to improve the lives of our members and help build their financial confidence, education, and stability.

Celebrate with us this entire week as we honor our members and the credit union movement. Each day we will offer small tokens of our appreciation. Please stop in our lobby to pick them up and say “hello”.

Monday: Back massager
Tuesday: Tumbler
Wednesday: Pop socket
Thursday: Cupcakes!
Friday: Foam phone holder

1 All figures where taken from the World Council of Credit Unions, 2020 Statistical Report
2 Quote from wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_union