WASHINGTON -
"You can't yell and scream about forcing credit unions that want to convert to banks to let their members have a real voice and access to information, and then turn around and yell and scream about 'board sanctity' and demand NCUA to keep information away from members and expect to maintain your credibility with lawmakers," one long-time credit union advocate said. "You can't have it both ways. Either you want members to have access to information about their options or you don't. Either you want members to be able to participate in the democratic credit union process or you don't."
Another credit union operative agreed, adding, "These conversions are a heck of a lot scarier [than the Wings-Continental situation], and I think we can expect more of those. We need to keep member protection at the forefront. If we let this thing with Wings and Continental bog down our message, we will have a hard time moving forward on reforming the conversion process, and that really is the much bigger issue."
One conversion consultant suggested the damage has already been done. "Clearly the door to this kind of thinking has been opened by the anti-conversion crowd," said Alan Theriault of CU Financial Services, which has worked on a number of credit union-to-bank conversions. "The question of what does or doesn't bring more value to the membership hadn't been top of mind before. If CUNA and NAFCU had allowed credit unions to convert along the lines Congress delineated, some of the larger credit unions that have nowhere to go would convert and leave the smaller credit unions alone."
