During a keynote session at NACUSO's annual conference last week, Hood marveled at the alliances CUSOs have formed. He reiterated one of his missions of keeping the balance between safety and soundness and allowing credit unions and CUSOs to serve members without "arduous, burdensome" regulations.

"I can not see other financial service providers doing what CUSOs and credit unions are doing," Hood said. "Many credit unions don't have the infrastructure to meet some of the needs of their members and this is where partnerships with CUSOs demonstrate the power of collaboration." Hood said there are a number of priorities he continues to advocate from credit unions further promoting member business lending and providing compliance partnerships to smaller credit unions to coming up with protections to prevent data breaches. The vice chairman said he is also a strong proponent of enterprise risk management especially in the areas of business continuity and disaster recovery. Hood said the issue of data security breaches is such a priority to him that he recently met with the Secret Service for feedback on different strategies to implement.

"It's the one thing that keeps me up at night," said Hood referring to data breaches, adding CUSOs like PSCU Financial Services are helping to ensure protections are in place. Hood's other priorities include seeing that credit unions offer affordable housing, which he applauded the industry for their current efforts. He also pointed to the number of baby boomers that have started to retire and how credit unions can be a source for estate planning. On the flip side, he called on credit unions to do more to attract Generation X and Y, concerned about the paltry 1% to 2% annual membership growth the industry continues to see as of late. "Credit unions don't need to spend millions of dollars getting to know their members because they look at them as valued relationships, not transactions," Hood said. "Segmented marketing during various life stages" can help credit unions "market products to members before they ever identify the need. Credit unions can do this far better because [they] are trusted advisors." Indeed, the vice chairman called on CUSOs to fill in the gap on member services, citing a recent survey that indicated a customer or member is least likely to leave their financial institution if they have at least eight products there. "This further underscores the role CUSOs play," Hood said. "Many [credit unions] would not be able to offer that eight without a CUSO relationship." With all the competitive pressures and growth concerns the industry continues to grapple with, one hot button issue has trade groups and leagues concerned about the very core of the credit union model: "hostile takeover" attempts by one credit union on another. After Hood's speech, Credit Union Times asked him about the concerns that some have expressed about the lack of guidelines and regulations in place to address such merger arrangements and if the agency could be doing more. "It's an issue that continues to be looked at. The agency acts in the statutory purview but we can not regulate bad behavior," Hood said. "We can look at and question inaccurate information" that might be presented to members to determine if boundaries have been overstepped. Hood reiterated that in the case of the Wings Financial FCU merger campaign, the agency never received an approved plan from it or Continental FCU. NCUA put a stop to Wings Financial's campaign towards Continental FCU when it ruled that the $200 payments being offered to Continental's members were impermissible under the Federal Credit Union Act. Meanwhile, another pressing issue that could impact leadership in the industry is the shortage of young people being groomed to become CEOs and senior managers, Hood challenged attendees to partner with colleges, have more training programs and offer internships to put the brakes on the shortage, which he says could come as soon as 2015. –[email protected]