Musings from the CU Suite

Written by Anthony Demangone, Powered by NAFCU

10 years ago…

• There were about 8,080 credit unions. Today there are 5,500.
• Our industry held $832 billion in assets. Today? More than $1.4 trillion.
• 11 percent of mobile phones were “smart” phones. Today? More than 80%.
• Netflix was less than a year into streaming content to users. Hulu was launched.
• The iPhone was a year old.
• In 2008, roughly 50 million Americans received a Sunday paper. Today? Less than 34 million.
• The sharing economy really didn’t exist as we know it. Airbnb started in 2008, and Uber started in 2009.
• You didn’t own an iPad. No one did.
• 10 years ago, there were $6.2 billion of travelers' checks outstanding by the largest six issuers. Today? $1.8 billion.

These are fairly big changes, but none of them seem shocking to me. Perhaps I'm just like the frog in a pot of water. If the heat is increased slowly, I never see the big changes taking place.

Where am I going with this? I'm not sure I even know. Perhaps it just makes me ask more questions.

1. If I would have known that these changes would have happened with certainty, what would I have done differently?
2. Looking at the changes in the past 10 years, do they seem to predict what will happen in the next decade?
3. Are these changes caused by technology adapting to human changes, or technology changing human behavior?  

All I know is this. Ten years ago, I was ten years younger. I hadn't changed a diaper yet. I had never driven a minivan. I had never said, "Because I said so," to any other human being. 

A lot can change in ten years.