This from the FT:

A clear-eyed analysis reveals that whether or not you are a victim of the financial crisis does not depend on whether you banked at a state or a privately owned financial institution. The determinant is which business model your bank employed. The model of banks doing business within their own regions was scoffed at for many years by the European Commission and by investment banks. By eschewing risk, this model has largely proved resistant to the crisis. Its resilience has also made the banks employing the model - locally based credit unions and savings banks - strongholds of financial stability and the most important source of credit for the country's small and medium-sized enterprises.

This is exactly consistent with the approach to banking I have proposed on this blog.