WASHINGTON -- Head of the membership task force and President/CEO of the Texas Credit Union League Dick Ensweiler reported that credit unions are taking advantage of only 15% of potential membership.

Ensweiler highlighted five areas that the task force came up with for credit unions to focus on when it comes to membership growth.

The first is national awareness and image with credit unions putting out the united message of trust, respect, and care. The second is market areas. Ensweiler marked youth, ethnic areas, and the underserved as key areas for credit unions to target for membership. The third is metrix, to find numbers on members and have a common reporting system. The fourth is best practices, to get good stories out there and use the best methods to bring in membership in the targeted market areas. The fifth is efficiency of back ground operations, which means to reach out to the community and to work together to better serve the community.

"We need to understand the opportunities that are local instead of seeing how broad we can make our field of membership," Ensweiler said. "We need to get out the message that you have to reach out to members they aren't going to come to you."