Creating a virtual community to enhance member services: credit unions and e-commerce

The purpose of this paper is to describe how credit unions that incorporate a virtual community into their e-commerce efforts are able to expand traditional services to better support its mission of democracy, volunteerism, and self-sufficiency. A virtual community is particularly suited to the credit union philosophy and while published data regarding the development of a virtual community is nonexistent, the paper describes the case of Norlarco Credit Union and its efforts to build a virtual community. Collaborative efforts among credit union executives and Colorado State University researchers resulted in a work-in-progress, virtual community framework for credit unions.