Credit unions struggle with regulatory burdens while attempting to tackle new forms of financial transaction technology. Small credit unions become part of larger institutions, either by choice or by directive. The shadow of taxation troubles the U.S. financial cooperative movement, while globally, credit unions serve more people in other countries than ever before.

Welcome to 1990, where the issues were much the same as they are today. The more things changed, pundits noted, the more they stayed the same, only more so.

But despite the similarities over time, credit unions have dramatically changed in the past 25 years while retaining the core philosophy that have given them an edge in the consumer financial services market. The same may be said of their primary trade associations – CUNA, the state leagues and NAFCU.

Some trade association changes have been subtle, while others constituted a full-scale overhaul of the organization and its goals and objectives. Opinions differ on whether trade associations are doing a good job keeping pace with a changing market, but all agree that the tasks they face have become more challenging over time.

“The role of trade associations in 1990 was to provide credit unions with a full suite of products and services, and they were like super-CUSOs,” Henry Wirz, who has been CEO of the $2.2 billion SAFE Credit Union in North Highlands, Calif., since 1984, said. “The trades provided forms, discounts on equipment, training for staff and a host of other services.”

This service orientation was vital for a movement attempting to remain competitive while performing at a much smaller and, many felt, less sophisticated level than its banking counterparts. The drive to provide services existed at both the national and local levels, according to industry veteran Pete Crear.

Crear, who retired as president/CEO of the World Council of Credit Unions in 2011, started at the Michigan Credit Union League as a junior auditor in 1965, advancing to vice president before accepting a job as president/CEO of what is now the Credit Union League of Connecticut in 1986. By 1990, he was heading up the Indiana Credit Union League just as the environment was starting to change.

“I was at the Indiana League and on my way to CUNA when my role was just beginning to bud into one of advocacy,” Crear, who retired the first time from CUNA in 2005 after serving a variety of executive roles and as interim president/CEO, said. “We were evolving from a fair amount of operational activities that league service corps provided to credit unions that they couldn't get anywhere else.”

The shift toward greater advocacy, especially at the league level, has been critical to the credit union movement's growing success, Crear said.

“No one else can do what the leagues are able to do in marshaling grassroots supporters,” Crear added.

In 1990, each state had its own league, but economies of scale and the growing need for greater lobbying efforts and more sophisticated services have caused the merger of multiple organizations. Today, there are just 32 state leagues and eight combined leagues, each serving multiple states. As service orientation declined, so did income sources for state-level groups, which helped speed up the merger process – something Crear believed was necessary.

“League downsizing gave the surviving organizations the rifle focus that they needed and the capability of serving their credit unions with the resources they still had,” Crear said.

In 1990, CUNA also was being buffeted by the winds of change and adopted a stronger advocacy stance, according to Bill Hampel, chief policy officer for CUNA. In fact, the organization itself began to change.

“The year 1990 saw the end of the old structure for CUNA,” said Hampel, who has been with the trade group since 1978. “The CUNA board itself had 350 members then, with an executive committee of 35 members that tended to act as the board. The annual meeting looked a lot like a political convention.”

By the mid-1990s, and in response to concerns raised by larger credit unions that state-level leagues restricted free access to the national trade group, the nature and structure of CUNA began to evolve. Continuing consolidation in the number of credit unions themselves also fueled the dialogue of change.

“By 1990, credit union consolidation had come a long way,” Hampel said. “That year we had 14,500 credit unions serving 62 million members. The number of institutions was down from its peak in 1970 of 23,700 that at the time served only 23 million members.”

Currently, 6,206 federally insured credit unions serve 100 million members, according to data released by the NCUA.

The loss in the number of institutions and the continued growth of sophistication in those remaining changed the nature of CUNA as an organization, Hampel said. In 1990, CUNA still had CUNA Mortgage, which served as a mortgage banker for credit unions, and CUNA Card Services, which provided credit card processing services. At the time, those organizations employed more staff than the trade association itself, and both have ceased to exist as the marketplace continued to change.

“What we're doing better now is what we should have been concentrating on all along, which is advocacy,” Hampel said. “In Washington today, that has become an incredibly onerous and difficult task.”

Despite their relative lack of culpability, credit unions are still caught in retribution and restitution for the Great Recession of 2008, Hampel explained. Subsequent laws and their enforcement have taken a greater toll on credit unions than at any time in recent history, and CUNA stepped up to the plate, he added.

“We believe Dodd-Frank would have been a lot more painful for credit unions had we not been there to soften it,” Hampel said.

During that same period, CUNA's locus of influence moved east from Madison, Wis., to Washington in support of its greater commitment to advocacy. Whether that involved an official change of headquarters is still unknown, according to Crear.

nafcu surviving officers 1990 Advocacy has always been at the heart of NAFCU, and over the past 25 years that hasn't changed, according to NAFCU President/CEO Dan Berger. (Pictured left, NAFCU's surviving officers gather together in 1990. From left to right: Bill Richards, Mack Rogers, B. David Goble, Frank Wielga, John Hutchinson, Robert Hess, John Stanton and H.C. (Hank) Klein.)

The association continues to focus on advocacy, education and compliance assistance as its primary missions.

“NAFCU has always focused on federal issues,” Berger, who joined the association in 2006, said. “That's the way it was in 1990 and that's the way it is today.”

One of the greatest changes to the organization occurred just last month when NAFCU opened its membership, formerly restricted to federally chartered credit unions, to state chartered, federally insured credit unions. The move was a logical step for NAFCU, Berger told attendees at the trade association's annual conference in Montreal on June 23.

Instant Insights /

Advocacy Dominates Trade Group Evolution

Related Stories

Recommended For You