56% of credit union executives are wary of crypto

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While the European Union (EU) is embracing crypto, credit union (CU) leaders are largely not.

This, as data from the April 2023 PYMNTS report, Credit Union Innovation: Bridging the Cryptocurrency Divide, a collaboration with PSCU, reveals that more than half of credit union leaders (56%) say they are not enthusiastic about providing cryptocurrency products. for their members.

Cryptocurrency remains a hot topic in the news, and although just under 1 in 3 US consumers own cryptocurrency (31%), those who tend to take crypto into consideration when make a host of financial decisions, including where they bank.

This points to a potential disconnect between what some credit union members want and what some credit union leaders plan to deliver.

Observers believe that the more informed consumers are about the possibilities of cryptos, the more willing they will be to experiment with crypto products. Half of consumers (50%) say that one of the reasons they don’t use cryptocurrency is because they know so little about it.

But credit union leaders seem unconvinced.

Many credit union executives are hesitant to offer cryptocurrency due to its volatility (66%) and relatively low penetration of digital assets as a method of payment (50%).

There is also a feeling that cryptocurrency is a passing fad (43%), and that there is still not enough information to determine whether investing in crypto is worth it (25%).

PYMNTS data shows that across certain metrics, the reluctance of credit union executives to market crypto products and services is only increasing over time.

For example, at the start of 2022, 56% of credit union executives cited crypto volatility as a factor in their reluctance, a percentage that jumped to 66% by the end of the year.

Similarly, 42% of leaders cited a general lack of market acceptance of digital assets as a method of payment as a factor in their reluctance to offer crypto products and services to members in Q1 2022.

By the end of the year, after the fourth quarter of 2022, the share of credit union executives saying the same jumped to exactly half, or 50%.

Still, the appeal of cryptos to its target audience remains strong. In the United States, nearly 6 in 10 millennials and bridge millennials (59%) own or have owned a cryptocurrency, making them the age group most likely to have owned digital currencies.

Get the report: Credit Union Innovation: Bridging the Cryptocurrency Gap

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