WASHINGTON-When Evan Clark began Tweeting about NCUA's proposed corporate rule in January, he quickly learned that not many CEOs use Twitter, and that many are tiring of the entire corporate mess.
The CEO of the Department of Commerce FCU spent his 12-minute daily commute reading the entire, 253-page proposed rule and sharing his "play-by-play" reaction to details of the regulator's plan.
"I got about a half dozen replies," Clark said. "The response was very muted. Twitter is not as widely used as some folks originally thought. I have noticed that since I have been on Twitter that the number of entries made by people have gone down considerably."
In his Tweets, Clark lauded NCUA for its capital reforms and leverage limitations,, but stated that he believes there is too much emphasis on corporates' net economic value, and too little focus lack on credit risk, which he sees as the chief cause of the meltdown
"I just wanted to bring some attention to the whole issue because I did not think a lot of people were really paying the attention to the new corporate regs-not as much as they should have been," Clark said.
The CEO of the $240-million CU has not changed his opinion.
"I think everyone is worn out over this," Clark stated. "I went to the NCUA Town Hall meeting in Alexandria recently and it was astonishing to see how tired everybody seemed to be about the whole issue. Eventually all the anger dies down and you have to get back to work. We have to say, 'OK, we will get 15 to 40 basis points taken away from us for the next 10 years, give or take.' You have to figure out how to plug that into your business model and try and make it work."
As for new tweets about the rule, Clark said it's unlikely. "I have a CU to run."
