With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau launch about a month away, credit union executives are expecting to spend more money and time complying with myriad of new regulations.

While Elizabeth Warren, who is setting up the bureau, has extolled the virtues of credit unions and promised to do no harm to them, executives and industry experts were not assuaged by her promises.

"The tendency of regulators is to regulate to the biggest offender, which would be the large banks. They aren't gearing the rules toward smaller institutions. But when an atomic bomb goes off, the fallout goes far beyond the spot of the detonation," said former NCUA Chairman Dennis Dollar, who now runs a credit union consulting firm.