Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal’s  Nicole Ridgway wrote a Weekend Investor piece comparing fees and rates between Credit Unions and banks.  Her findings showed that overwhelming Credit Unions beat banks in all categories.   The table below illustrates her point:

A few quotes from the article (which you can read in its entirety here):

Credit unions increasingly are opening their doors to a broader group of people—and offering deals that handily beat those offered at fee-heavy big banks. – Nicole Ridgway, Wall Street Journal

Part of credit unions’ competitive advantage stems from their not-for-profit structure, which allows them to return profits to members in the form of more-competitive interest rates and better products. – Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com