(Almost) no credit unions in New York City, why?
There are 2 credit unions in the Metro NY area that are open to everyone: You might also want to check out aSmarterChoice.org to see if there are other credit union options based on where you live, work, worship & more. I would have been tempted to dismiss your claim, but the data I found shows that you're correct. On the plus side, the growth rate in credit union market share is higher in New York than it is in California. While there is no question that bankers hate credit unions, I can't tell you why credit unions have a smaller market share in NY. Maybe the regulatory environment is part of it. Banks have a big lobby, and they pay a lot of taxes in NYC.
There are lots of credit unions that are insured by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) through the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF) instead of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Both cover individual accounts up to $250,000. If you are looking for non-trivial returns on your money, you should consider a brokerage account which is insured by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SPIC). In the case of SPIC insured accounts, what you are insured against is the failure of the broker (not against loss on your investments if you choose to invest poorly). SPIC insurance covers up to $500,000 in losses from an insolvent broker. You have already indicated your lack of interest in using other investments, but I am not aware of any non-insured accounts that offer higher interest than insured accounts. You have also indicated your lack of interest in investment advice, but it sounds like what you are looking for is offered by a stable value fund. "I was a millennial ""stuck"" in New York. I was in law school when the crash happened. I wanted to practice in smaller cities like CLT or ATL but immediately after the crash there were very few jobs, while New York started doing deals again by about late 2009. So I had to go to NY.   You end up getting ""stuck"" because of the barriers to move. For me it was the bar. But there are others like markets that recovered more slowly, experience requirements set by employers, the fact that there are simply more jobs in large urban markets. Most of my law school class started in SF, NY, Chi, and LA. Now we're on our 2nd firm or city in CLT, ATL, HOU, MIA, etc." Nope.  Credit Unions are for the customers.  Since the customers own them, the credit union does what is best for the members.  They aren't giving you money, they are loaning it to you for for interest.  Furthermore then judged you like any other bank would. High horse moment: I believe the only reason you have to open an account, is because the banking industry didn't want to compete and got legislation to limit the size and reach of a credit union.   The credit union wants your business, and they want to work for you, but they are required to have these membership requirements because their lobby isn't as powerful as regular banks. &gt; accessing all atms fee free, having services available 24/7, having robust, safe and audited online services, and having a big enough bank that all major third party tools interface with it.   You just described my single state credit union I've been with for 19 years now, and not the big bank I was with before (Wells Fargo). CUs are now starting to adopt some of the bank's tricks, like using a longer float during online bill paying and for outside transfers.  Also for overdrafts they are now starting to kick into fees or automatic loans rather than transferring money from your savings account.  I've been a member for decades and my CUs weren't doing this previously. Actually it seems you are not quite correct about the number of different banks in Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_and_credit_unions_in_Canada According to this link there are 82-86 banks in Canada plus credit unions. This may still be lower than what would correspond to the number of banks in the US, scaled for canadian population. One further reason not mentioned before could be that the population density in Canada outside of the metropolitan areas could be lower than in the US, leaving to few small towns large enough (10,000+ (a guess corrected due to comment)) to support a bank. I worked at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage right before all the ARM loan stuff hit the news. Everyone on the board was constantly talking about increasing their portfolios.  One of the main ways they aimed to do this was by creating new loan products aimed at non-traditional borrowers (read: people who didn't meet the requirements for their traditional loan products). We had quarterly company-wide meetings to inform us about this kind of thing and it never really seemed like a great plan to me. Two years later, and the banks started failing. If his credit union participates in the national Co-Op, then he will be able to withdraw money at any participating credit union. He could just bring cash a check out in his name, just like he would at home. RTFA  &gt;Noah places the high-water mark for unionism in the mid-1950s, when nearly 40 percent of American workers were either union members or “nonunion members who were nonetheless covered by union contracts.” In the early postwar years, even the Chamber of Commerce believed that “collective bargaining is a part of the democratic process,” as its then-president noted in a statement. &gt;But, in the late-1970s, union membership began falling off a cliff, brought on by a variety of factors, including jobs moving offshore and big labor’s unsavory reputation. Government didn’t help either: Ronald Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981 sent an unmistakable signal that companies could run roughshod over federal laws intended to protect unions — which they’ve done ever since. &gt;The result is that today unions represent 12 percent of the work force. “Draw one line on a graph charting the decline in union membership, then superimpose a second line charting the decline in middle-class income share,” writes Noah, “and you will find that the two lines are nearly identical.” Richard Freeman, a Harvard economist, has estimated that the decline of unions explains about 20 percent of the income gap. Well, they tried but banks pretty much refused to lend and/or people refused to borrow. At least not enough to ignite inflation.  And now with a tightening cycle underway it's going to take a recession to get the fed to change course. They're all over the place: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems But yes unions are mostly why there aren't more of them and I have some sympathy for them - especially since Robotics &amp; automation are likely to significantly change or destroy most of our jobs over the next 20 years.... "I know many people who would recommend joining a credit union. They're typically local and are not-for-profit entities (not non-profit like a charity). The ""customers"" are actually members who cooperatively provide financial services to the other members. Oftentimes if there's a surplus of profits at the end of the year, they divvy them up to the members based on how many accounts they have, what their balances are, loans, etc." Any institution that issues checks and is connected to the ACH system can be the passive side. Any institution that clears checks and is connected to the ACH system can be the originating side. Not any institution that can be - in fact is. Your credit union doesn't provide this service because they don't want to. It costs them money to implement and support it, but they don't see the required benefit to justify it. They can. My credit union does that. "I can't find a citation, but from memory (EDIT: and reading the newspapers at the time it happened): up until around 1980, banks couldn't cross state borders.  In my state, at least, they were also very local, only staying within one county. This was to enforce ""localness"", the thought being that local bankers would know local people and the local situation better than far away people who only see numbers and paperwork." Besides, if you don't like how your Credit Union is investing your money, you can always agitate for change by asking members to change the board that governs it. Being a member of a Credit Union gives you a vote on how the institution runs itself.