In response to the lawsuits filed by two Texas credit unions against NCUA following the agency's rejection of the bid to convert to a mutual savings bank charter, Texas league CEO Dick Ensweiler has issued a statement calling the action "shameful."
At issue is the conversion attempts by Plano-based Community Credit Union and Fort Worth-based OmniAmerican Credit Union.
"I think it is shameful that Community Credit Union and OmniAmerican Credit Union have chosen to waste more of their members' money on expensive lawsuits, rather than just comply with the simple and accurate language requirements to inform their members about the consequences of converting from a not-for-profit credit union to a for-profit bank," said Ensweiler, who is also chairman of CUNA.
"What's worse is that they have made this into a political game of 'trash the regulator' by taking it to Capitol Hill," he continued. "Their well-heeled lawyers and lobbyists are trying to minimize the problem and mask the real issue. The truth is, these two credit unions used innocuous language and buried the one, single page required by regulators that actually explains in plain language what the members are voting on-that their not-for-profit credit union will become a bank. These credit union directors and managers were trying to achieve their goal of converting to a for-profit bank without actually telling their members that's what they were doing, because they were afraid the very members they have a fiduciary duty to represent might reject the conversion."
