Concerned about the outcome of NCUA’s spinoff of Western Bridge corporate, the president/CEO of a Salt Lake City credit union said this week he expects to take up the issue with bankers and a peer Oregon CEO next Wednesday at a meeting of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Darin Moody, the head of the $236 million Utah First FCU was named to one of two so-called “credit union seats” on a special San Francisco Fed panel. He said the fate of Western Bridge and its impact on “interchange income and conditions in the payments sector” need airing in light of the Fed’s expanded servicing role amid corporate shrinkage.
The NCUA, he said, has repeatedly tried to tamp down “any panic” about the future of credit union services as the agency tries to find a buyer for Western Bridge but said there needs to be discussion on contingencies for small CUs.
There has been speculation, Moody said, that the NCUA may eventually seek out a large correspondent bank to take over Western Bridge, but he said there is frustration about the uncertainty of the outcome.
The NCUA has said there would be no service interruption while the fate of Western Bridge is being decided after its failure to recapitalize as United Resources.
Moody joins Ronald Barrick, president/CEO of the $810 million Advantis CU of Milwaukie, Ore., on the Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council of the San Francisco Fed for its fall meeting.
The San Francisco version of the CDIAC is one of 12 such district bank committees charted by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a year ago to draw more grassroots input from community bank and CU leaders on economic conditions and policies.
Each district bank is supposed to have 12 members, with at least two CEOs from CUs.
In picking Moody, the Utah Credit Union League said Thursday his selection by the San Francisco Fed was a good one since the Salt Lake CEO is “a progressive thinker, an innovator and his credit union is a leader in branding, product offerings, and company culture."
Moody said he’ll meet Barrick of Advantis for the first time at the CDIAC meeting in San Francisco. The chairman of the San Francisco CDIAC is John Evans Jr., CEO of D.L. Evans Bank in Burley, Idaho.
