The Arkansas Credit Union League has appointed a task force charged with creating a survey to help determine and measure what the state's credit unions are doing to serve the underserved.
"The first step will be to interview credit unions of different sizes to find out what they're doing," ACUL President Reta Kahley told The Credit Union Journal. "Then we will create of list of questions to send out to all our credit unions from which we can create a document to give our legislators."
The league is hoping to produce this document in time for its June meeting with lawmakers at Credit Union House in Washington.
"We want to be able to go to them and say, 'See, this is exactly what credit unions are doing in your state and in your district to serve people of modest means,'" Kahley explained.
Noting the reluctance of credit unions to document their service to the underserved in any sort of formal or official manner, Kahley said it's time credit unions recognize the need to do so.
"I think some credit unions feel like, 'I'm already doing this, and making me document it just takes me away from doing the very things they want me to document,'" Kahley noted. "Or in some cases they're already doing these things but they don't even realize they're doing it because they've been doing things for the right reasons and not because anybody told them to for such a long that it's become second nature. They don't even know where to begin documenting something that's just second nature to them. But the time has come for credit unions to proactively tell lawmakers, 'here's what we do.'"
