Boiling Point - Episode 125 - Richard Vaillancourt and Omista

Cooperative Banking

Show Notes

Cooperative Banking

Reintroducing Richard Vaillancourt and Omista

No customer likes to be treated like a number, but no doubt you have experienced a lack of personal service if you have a relationship with many large organizations. It is impersonal with low interaction, often you are left on hold for a number of minutes if you called in, and sometimes the experience is down right unfriendly. If the previous examples sound familiar and it relates to your bank, perhaps you should give a credit union a try.

Richard Vaillancourt is the CEO of Omista Credit Union in New Brunswick, which manages assets of over $300 million. What sets places like Omista apart from your traditional chartered bank is a focus on community. In fact, Omista keeps all of its activities local and New Brunswick based. Omista’s commitment to community has gone even further by subscribing to a triple bottom line by becoming a B Corp. When you consider that Omista offers a carbon copy of the services offered by traditional banks it makes sense to switch to a financial institution built on a cooperative spirit.

Check out this episode of the Boiling Point to see how the credit union approach could help you and your financial needs.

In this episode

We learn what led Richard from a life of working with the traditional banks to start with credit unions.
Richard tells us about Omista and what sets it apart.
We learn what led Omista become a B Corp company.
Richard tells us it what it means to invest in your community and the themes that guide his credit union.
We learn what Omista learned by doing the B Corp assessment and how it steered them toward further changes.
Richard tells us about the efforts he and his employees have made in their community.
We ask why more people haven’t made the switch to a credit union.
There is a discussion about the “psychological contract” between employees and their employers.
Dave would like to see more financial institutions run by those in human resource backgrounds.
Greg considers switching to Omista because of the B Corp “fraternity”.