Membership
What Member-Ownership Actually Means for Your Money
Every credit union says it is member-owned. Fewer explain what that structure does to the numbers on your statement. Here is the arithmetic.
Summit was chartered in 1948 by a group of 71 people who each put in five dollars.
When you open an account at a bank, you become a customer. When you open one at Summit, you buy a share. That $5 in your share savings account is not a fee and not a minimum balance; it is an ownership stake, and it comes with a vote at the annual meeting and a claim on what the institution earns.
This is not a marketing distinction. It is a legal structure, and it changes where the money goes.
Where a bank's profit goes, and where ours does
A bank and a credit union earn money the same way: they take deposits, lend that money out at a higher rate, and keep the spread. The difference is what happens to the spread after expenses.
At a publicly traded bank, what is left after operating costs is profit, and profit belongs to shareholders. It leaves the institution as dividends and buybacks, and it is expected to grow every quarter. Those shareholders may have no accounts at the bank at all. Their interests and yours are not opposed, but they are not the same either: a higher savings rate is a cost to them and a benefit to you.
A credit union has no outside shareholders. It is a not-for-profit financial cooperative, which does not mean it aims to break even. It means that after operating expenses and the reserves regulators require, whatever remains has nowhere to go except back to the members. There is no third party in line.
That return arrives in four ways: better rates on loans, better yields on deposits, fewer and smaller fees, and reinvestment in service. It rarely arrives as a check, which is why it is easy to miss.
What that looks like in dollars
Abstractions are unpersuasive, so consider a household with $18,000 in savings, a $28,000 auto loan, and a checking account they use every day.
The savings account alone accounts for roughly $671 a year. The auto loan saves about $423 in interest annually at those rates. The absent fees add $246. None of it required a promotion, a qualifying balance, or a call to retention.
The tax question, answered plainly
Credit unions do not pay federal corporate income tax, and banks point this out often. It is true. The exemption exists because a cooperative's earnings are already the members' money, and members pay tax on the dividends they receive. Credit unions do pay payroll taxes, property taxes, and sales taxes like any other employer.
One member, one vote
In a corporation, votes follow shares: someone holding a million shares outvotes someone holding ten. In a credit union, every member gets exactly one vote regardless of whether they keep $5 or $500,000 on deposit. Members elect the board of directors, and those directors are unpaid volunteers drawn from the membership. They are not compensated in stock, so there is no personal incentive tied to growth for its own sake.
Practically, this shows up in decisions that would be hard to justify to shareholders: keeping branches open in small communities, offering Second Chance Checking to members who have been turned away elsewhere, and eliminating overdraft fees, which was a direct reduction in revenue.
The things that are the same
Honesty matters more than enthusiasm here. Your deposits are federally insured to at least $250,000 by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, which is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government exactly as FDIC insurance is. The name is different; the protection is not.
Credit unions are examined by the same kind of regulator, follow the same consumer protection laws, and are held to the same lending standards. A cooperative structure does not mean looser underwriting. It means the margin ends up somewhere different.
What membership asks of you
Very little. Keep $5 in your share account and you remain an owner. Vote in the annual election if you care to, and attend the meeting if you want to see the financials, which are published in full each year. Beyond that, the most useful thing a member does is use the institution: every loan and deposit strengthens the cooperative's ability to price the next one well.
Eligibility is broader than most people assume. If you live, work, worship, or attend school in our field of membership, or if a family member is already a member, you qualify. It takes about five minutes.
Rates current as of July 2026 and subject to change. Membership eligibility required. This is a demonstration website; rates, products, and figures shown are illustrative only.
Become an owner, not a customer
A $5 deposit into a share account makes you a member of Summit, with a vote and a claim on what we earn.