BankThink

Rather than obsessing over servicing, why not focus on loan production, which is far easier to regulate and far more relevant to the future of banks and our economy? How about actually giving priority to avoidance of the next crisis, rather than maintaining a maudlin and unproductive emphasis on cleaning up the debris from the last one?

For the past decade, when not representing credit unions at the state capital in Harrisburg or providing various services to its multitude of small credit unions or dealing with all the pressures credit union associations face, employees of the Pennsylvania Credit Union Association have been cleaning up the highway at the interchange of Route 22-322 and Route 39, not far from its headquarters.

I strongly urge all credit union executives to support the corporate credit union model. Not recapitalizing corporate credit unions may be a long-term solution to a short-term problem. While our industry is growing, it is still a very small player in the financial landscape. We can't afford to become retail customers in a system controlled by our competition.

In comparing the ways that credit unions fund their benefit programs to the ways in which banks cover the same kinds of liabilities, a question arises: Are credit unions taking riskier positions than banks in funding employee and officer benefits costs?

In an effort to educate consumers about the act, it is recommended that credit unions and banks uniformly call the new fees the "Dodd-Frank" fees.

There are few topics where so much intellectual capital has been spent on an issue of so little practical value as the prospects for either a partial or total return to the gold standard. For that reason, the issue tends to be discussed and debated among a handful of loyal advocates or opponents. But perhaps it is time for bankers to pay closer attention.

Rational judgment must complement the efficiencies of the laws of large numbers. Bankers must avoid the lure of financing consumers that believe in spending beyond their means.

A well-structured forbearance program would likely save many homeowners from defaulting on their mortgages, and it would do so at a very modest cost.

During NAFCU's Strategic Growth Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., security consultant Don Thompson was sharing some of the rationales used by those who embezzle and steal from their credit union. A common remark, he said, is thieves will tell themselves and others that they are "overworked and underpaid."

As the business and nonprofit worlds have become more complex and seemingly in constant flux, what directors need to know about the organization seems clouded. It needn't be.