This year credit unions are making big efforts to celebratetheir 100th anniversary. Some have put together events to mark theoccasion, but the hundreds of small, local events add up to zero.Zero recognition by anyone outside the credit union community.

After 100 years and with 90 million members, you'd thinklawmakers would be bowing to the pressures of the credit unionmovement. Not hardly. Credit unions are still regularly left out oflegislation pertaining to them, such as the Consumer FinancialProtection Agency provision regarding federal preemption-or thelack thereof. Further, the good actors are being caught up with theriff-raff when it comes to overdraft legislation, the CARD Act andother reform matters that have a negative impact.

Worse yet, the vast majority of potential credit union members,and even existing members, don't know what a credit union is orwhat it does. I'm not talking about emphasizing the nonprofit,financial cooperative status because financial consumers might likethose ideals, but they're going to chase the services and rates.Credit unions, collectively, need to better explain what they do,not their structure. No one cares that credit unions are nonprofitcooperatives if they don't provide the services consumers want andthe rates they want. Or if they don't even know they exist.Different facets of the credit union community have studied theissue of recognition, but nothing is being done on a national levelto fix it.