LAS VEGAS — Credit unions and credit union mortgage originators need to cooperate more to help guarantee that CUs have a place at the table in whatever secondary mortgage market arises out of GSE reform, according to a panel of CU CEOs at Monday's opening of the American Credit Union Mortgage Association fall conference.

Rudy Hanley, CEO of Schools First FCU in Santa Ana, Calif., and Kirk Kordeleski, CEO of Bethpage FCU in Bethpage, N.Y., joined John McKechnie, senior vice president with Total Spectrum, a Washington government affairs firm to address the question of what GSE reform means to CUs.

Since the shape of GSE reform remains unclear, the panelists recommended CUs work more together to help make sure that CUs have sufficient volume to bring to the secondary market to protect their interests.

What concerns Kordeleski is if credit unions don't cooperate to bring volume to the secondary market, the big banks will simply come to us individually to buy loans at a price that will not be as advantageous “and pick us off,” he observed.

The panel proposed that organization would be necessary if the secondary market reform left a new market that favored bigger financial institutions more over smaller ones.

McKechnie encouraged the effort but urged that credit unions need to be mindful of the legislative and regulatory fears of aggregate risk that have come to dominate Washington. “If you do this, you should always remember that you are not working for the good of credit unions but for the good of your 92 million members,” he said.