With apologies to Benjamin Franklin, death, taxes and government regulations are the only things in this world that can be said to be certain. But Pam Perdue believes that the rapidly growing regulatory burden being shouldered by community financial institutions may be taxing credit unions to death, or at least driving some of them out of business.

Perdue, the executive vice president of regulatory compliance for Continuity, a New Haven, Conn.-based provider of automated compliance solutions, closely watches the regulatory climate for both credit unions and community banks. In her mind, the idea that credit unions are being regulated out of business is a foregone conclusion.

"It's not only conceivable," Perdue said, "the numbers as well as anecdotal evidence tell us it's true, for both banks and credit unions."