The number of shared branching transactions conducted by membersof the 73,000-member, $1.5 billion Technology Credit Union suggeststhat losing shared branching services if it moved to a bank chartercould have an impact on its members.

Technology CU posted a notice to its members about a potentialcharter change earlier in October and has scheduled a board vote on Nov. 2 toformally consider making an application. In order for the CU tochange charters, a majority of members voting would have to approveit.

San Jose, Calif.-based Technology has not returned calls forcomment on the potential charter change.

Technology is a participant in the Financial Service CentersCooperative shared branch network and in its notice the creditunion told members that if they use shared branching to maketransactions as credit union members, they will not be able to doso as bank customers, though the credit union said this would onlyinconvenience “a small percentage” of members.

Technology also said its planned additional ATMs withdeposit capability will ease some of that inconvenience andsuggested the loss of shared branching would be worth it.

But records of the credit union's shared branch usage raisesquestions about the contention that only a small percentage ofmembers use the service. According to those records, which arewidely distributed among shared branching credit unions, Technology CU logged 75,000 shared branching transactionsthrough the end of September, more than one transaction for each ofthe CU's 73,000 members, indicating that the service is used fairlyvigorously.

Further, when asked about the impact of shared branching on acredit union's operations, Sarah Canepa Bang, FSCC CEO, said thatmany CUs look at shared branching transaction data and mistakenlyassume that it is the same people over and over using theservice.

“On the contrary, what we find is that it is different peopleusing shared branching and they are often using it for moresignificant reasons that just dropping off a deposit or picking upsome cash,” Bang said. “Our data shows that shared branchingmembers are not using it to get five bucks.”

Canepa Bang also noted that other credit unions have found thatincreased ATM access had not eaten into shared branching use buthad instead developed alongside it. “Credit unions with strong ATMprograms and shared branching find members use both,” she said.