SALT LAKE CITY — It may have been the opening day of the Utah Legislature, but it did not take long for the perennial bank/credit union-clash to hit the media.
This time, the standoff was aired on Utah public radio. It happened on Jan. 15 in a half-hour show pitting the president of a Salt Lake City-based CUSO against Howard Headlee, president/CEO of the Utah Bankers Association, discussing small business lending and the tax-exemption.
"I think they each got in a few shots at each other but it was pretty interesting," said Lara Jones, producer of the "Bottomline" show appearing on KCPW, a Park City-based station serving northern Utah.
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Though serious anti-CU bills have yet to hit the Utah legislature, Jones said she thought that "since it was such an issue in the past" she would arrange for a debate on opening day. It pitted Headlee against Kent Moon, president of Member Business Lending, LLC, a CUSO founded three years ago by Mountain America Credit Union of Salt Lake.
Member Business Lending, which in recent months has gone national in signing up CUs, is a leading provider of SBA loans to businesses in the underserved market.
Headlee claimed during the debate that the "unequal playing field" exists in Utah because of the tax-exemption giving CUs an advantage over banks in offering small business loans.
Moon denied there was such an advantage and countered that the capital structure of banks and CUs was so different, leading banks to turn away from serving the underserved.
Moon also asked Headlee if banks saw such an advantage in the tax-exemption structure, "why don't more banks convert to credit unions?" a point deflected by Headlee as "simply improbable."
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