As you no doubt have heard, NCUA Chairman JoAnn Johnson has announced a Summit on Credit Union Capital, where “All issues relating to capital for America’s credit unions will be on the table.” NCUA is inviting credit union officials from the Association of Corporate Credit Unions, CUNA, NAFCU, NASCUS, and the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions to participate in the Oct. 19 summit at NCUA headquarters. Plus individual comments can be submitted to regcomments@ncua.gov.

By Michael Neill, CSE

I heard a consultant say that a credit union sales and service culture is like the Loch Ness Monster. Many claim it exists but no one has actually seen it! Pretty funny, but an overstatement. Still, there are far more credit unions that continue working to differentiate themselves by processing faster and more accurately, than there are excellent examples of sales and service cultures in our movement. Given that credit unions are “built for service” why do we see few top-notch sales and service cultures?

By Henry Wirz Despite efforts by the Shapiro Group to raise money and award grants to credit unions with assets of less than $30 million, California Credit Union League Chairman Frank Michael just presented statistics confirming that smaller credit unions in the aggregate are underperforming on almost every measure of credit union financial performance. The Shapiro Group and others like it are not going to turn around the performance of small credit unions. Their problems run far deeper than anything The Shapiro Group can address.

By Fred Johnson

… But not in the way you might expect.

By Fred Johnson

By Fred Johnson

By John Dolan-Heitlinger

Now we all know that the net worth ratio is an important measure of the ability of a credit union to withstand financial losses. Capital is accumulated to mitigate unforeseeable credit risk, interest rate risk, asset liability mismatching, natural and economic disasters, uninsured losses, criminal activity, staff ineptitude, etc. (1)

By Franck Schuurmans, Ph.D., CAE In recent years many clients of Decision Strategies International have made the switch from a multi-SEG credit union to a community charter. Erosion of the SEG relationship, the need to grow a more diverse base and the need for accelerated growth all drove this development. Yet hanging out a different shingle does not necessarily bring success. Simply changing the charter, without truly changing your market view, is a recipe for disappointment and can lead to loss of focus and declining revenue and net income.