McDonald's is machine-like in supplying its stores with a consistent product. This helps on the price it can demand from suppliers and product recognition from consumers. It also has well-established workflows for its restaurants. McDonald's employees can swap restaurant locations on any given day and still do their job at the same level.

What does all this have to do with credit unions? Well, look around. Credit unions are consolidating rapidly, and it's not talked about a lot but mergers cost money. There are system integrations, new branding materials, training, personnel issues, and on and on. Joining together two credit unions that do things very differently isn't easy or cheap.

What if there was a McDonald's-like model for credit unions? A menu of financial products could be established using the same systems, same workflows, vendors, etc. that would establish scale and consistency and conceivably make it very easy to not only merge existing credit unions but start new ones! Even more exciting, this franchised concept could help keep stagnant credit unions in business. If they had a low-cost delivery channel to get more products into the hands of their members, their viability increases.

Some of you reading this may think this isn't an exciting concept at all, but a boring one. If thousands of credit unions were offering the same products, the same rates, how could they differentiate themselves? But don't forget about McDonald's local fare. Just like a cabbage pie in Russia, a credit union in a booming real estate market could pick more robust mortgage offerings from the credit union franchise. This back-end consistency also doesn't mean a credit union couldn't build its own unique brand and use its marketing savvy to build business. In fact this model would free credit unions up to focus more on its brand and outreach.

This franchise concept isn't just for products and services, more importantly it's the operations end. If these franchised credit unions could be on the same systems, utilize the same vendor relationships, and as a unit become a larger player, it will benefit from economies of scale.

This concept isn't as crazy as it sounds. Get some big players together like CUNA Mutual, large credit unions, large CUSOs and corporates and a credit union franchise could certainly be established.

Why bother you may ask? Well it would probably save the industry millions in consolidation costs going forward. It could help stem the tide of consolidation or at least change the look of it and it could become a catalyst for new credit unions. New credit unions? While de novo banks are popping up everyday, it is rare for a new credit union to form. That's not good. If the industry broke down barriers to starting credit unions by making it more cost-effective and by having established systems, workflows and products, new credit unions could become a reality.

I hope everyone reading this column doesn't dismiss this concept as a pipe dream or as Gentile not getting enough sleep, this could be for real and it could help solve some serious problems facing credit unions.

The best thing: this isn't new. This is just a grander idea of what many successful CUSOs and credit union vendors have done. Think of Credit Union Direct Lending franchising indirect lending or of PSCU Financial Services on the card end.

Ambitious? Yes. Impossible? No. Worth exploring? Definitely. –Comments? E-mail [email protected]