The best kept secret about credit unions might be theopportunities that exist in partnering with other localcooperatives.

Consider the statistics. Globally, the largest 300 cooperativeshave collective revenues of $1.6 trillion. In the United States,a recent Filene Research Institute and National Credit UnionFoundation report entitled Quantifying the Business Case forCredit Unions and Other Cooperatives revealed thatcooperatives' assets totaled $1.754 billion. A breakdown ofthose assets revealed $346 billion were non-financial cooperatives,$1.126 billion were credit unions and $282 billion were otherfinancial cooperatives that were owned, at least in part, bynon-financial cooperatives.

With shared principles of service to members, credit unions andtheir community cooperatives working together to build mutuallybeneficial relationships would be a no-brainer.