For years in speeches and columns I have been railing on the subject of change. Credit unions and the dozens of groups that serve them, I would say, can ignore change, fight change, or embrace change. For a long time, there were always plenty of examples available in all three...

Anyone writing about credit unions learned early on that there is always plenty of good news and bad news to write about. What's a little trickier is determining which is which depending on the perspective brought to bear on a particular news item. There are plenty of recent examples. Here...

The person most identified with making credit union conversions from a CU charter to a bank charter a reality, Alan D. Theriault, President, CU Financial Services, has been showing up in the credit union trade press recently defending what he does for a living in strongly worded letters to the...

The much-ballyhooed succession planning process is not all that it is cracked up to be. With apologies to long time readers, yes, here I go again on a topic I wrote about in this space many years ago. My opinions about it haven't changed. If anything, witnessing numerous examples of...

Mergers among credit unions are no big deal. Dozens occur every year. Usually they involve a larger credit union swallowing up a much smaller credit union. Not always. But regardless of size, virtually all credit union mergers in recent memory have gone off without a hitch. Mergers are one reason...

The stepped up pace of credit union charter conversions from federal to state, state to federal, and both state and federal to bank charters, has caused several unexpected consequences. At one point there seemed to be a flood of conversions away from the federal charter to what was considered to...

Although none of the banking trade associations have asked for my opinions in connection with their ongoing battle against credit unions, I'm going to give them anyway. In my opinion, the state and national banking trade groups' attempts to put all but the smallest credit unions out of business is...

In recent months, several more state credit union leagues (Montana and Iowa) have announced plans to substantially reduce the size of their boards. The usual reason given for the action is that it reflects the rapidly shrinking number of credit unions in the state. As leagues (or whatever they chose...