Hi Brendan,
I think you are missing something there,, true your Credit Union takes your shares and puts them on deposit with a bank, however a Credit Union member gets a huge return on its cash in the CU v the bank.
Credit Unions take a big loss on members 100k in shares. example below.
CU puts 100k of members money into the bank (on call/instant access money) gets about .01% from the bank. 10 euro
CU pays out to its member in dividend maybe 1% or 1.5% so the CU pays out 150 euro to the member - costing the CU 140 euro
I think the Credit Unions should forget about paying out such a handsome dividend and focus maybe on reducing lending rates.
I suspect the banks leaning on the Central Bank understand that Credit Unions could have the ability to vastly reduce their interest rates for car loans/personal loans if they were allowed to do so (by the CB).