SAN ANTONIO — According to bankers, San Antonio is a “credit union town” and so it is not surprising that a local business writer for the San Antonio Express News wrote a biting tongue-in-cheek article hitting bank practices on helping small business owners while attacking CUs.

“Yes, we've seen some of his columns before and remember that San Antonio has a strong military presence with lots of credit unions and often seen as pro credit unions,” said a spokeswoman for the Austin-based Texas Bankers Association.

In a lead business column appearing Feb. 27 entitled, “Man, credit unions have really got their nerve,” David Hendricks criticized banks for being greedy in opposing CU lending to small business and for hypocrisy on CURIA.

Since publication of his column, Hendricks told Credit Union Times most of the response has been positive. “Three e-mails were not, and one was from someone who has worked both for a bank and a credit union,” he said. “All of the negative e-mails criticized the differences in taxation and their point–ancient one–was that CUs had an advantage. I found that amusing because that wasn't the point of my column.”

In jest, Hendericks wrote in his column, “credit unions are just trying to take advantage of banks” particularly as they “are crying big tears after being wounded by all the securities they bought that were tainted with subprime mortgages.”