WASHINGTON - Calling the opportunities of the Internet Age downright "flabbergasting," Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) told 3,000 attendees at CUNA's Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC) February 29 that credit unions stood at the fulcrum of "democratic capitalism" and an emerging, Internet-based populist economy that was crying out for credit union leadership and development. But, Kanjorski added, if the CU movement failed to quickly heed this cry, another grassroots organization would emerge to fill the leadership void. "The Internet today offers the opportunity for the very smallest credit union in America to offer the most sophisticated services of the largest banking institution in the world," Kanjorski said. "But even to go beyond financial institutions...because you have a common bond of membership, you can go beyond to serve people's needs in many other categories, above and beyond just financial services." Kanjorski explained that such an e-commerce brokerage role for CUs would be a way in which average Americans could participate in democratic capitalism and "partake and hold part of developing America." "The opportunities...are in the not-too-distant future," Kanjorski added, "that any person in America who wants to be in business will be able to buy into or buy a franchise of some of the smartest technology developed in the world through the Internet, and possibly through their credit union-and (compete), using their credit union as a financing vehicle and also as a group purchasing vehicle...with the largest, most competitive companies in the world." "This is something that has never existed for the average individual, and this is something you can afford, and offer to your members with little cost and little delay." Kanjorski noted that the CU community's structure, leadership, financial capacity, and "support of the Congress" all combined to make credit unions the likely candidate to fill this pressing, 21st century leadership role. "If the credit union movement does not participate in that," Kanjorski cautioned, "a new group will (emerge) to accomplish that end....The challenge to the credit union movement is to get it done and be the major player in this movement." "The whole world is waiting for this," Kanjorski went on, foreseeing a technology-driven golden age where unemployment and social problems had diminished. "And they're looking to America to be the leaders of this...." Claiming that the day's technology-based opportunities have no parallel in history, Kanjorski said, "You could provide that first-place opportunity for every member of the credit union movement and deliver to America democratic capitalism in its finest hour and in its finest way." "You are their dream," Kanjorski said of people awaiting expanded opportunities. "You are the window of opportunity (through which) they can seize their opportunity, personally." "So...establish the means and the end," he asked the audience, "so that some twenty years from now the credit union movement will not only be a major player in the financial services industry of the country, but will be a major organizer and player in the American economy...." -
gmcorrigan@mindspring.com
