HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. -
Opening keynote speaker Mario Andretti revved up the crowd with BISA President John Vaughn about the similarities of building "high performance teams." That was followed by discussions that included the Race for the Retirement Market, Financial Advisor Best Practices, Tearing Down the Silos and Reg-R implementation.
For the second year, BISA held a NACUSO Credit Union/CUSO Peer Group Session moderated by Pete Snyder, president of Kinecta Financial Management Company, Rocklin, Calif. and a NACUSO director, and Judy Sandberg, VP of Strategic Direction for Gateway Services Group and NACUSO's Interim chief operating officer.
Snyder noted that BISA attendees and NACUSO attendees "have separate competencies and not a lot of overlap, so this year we'll be promoting each other's conferences." That news was well received, with one person commenting that attending both meetings was too time consuming and too costly. Snyder also announced that NACUSO and Callahan & Associates will launch a CU-specific benchmarking program, the first part to be released in the spring of this year.
"Callahan's has created the template and the Big Six broker/dealers, who service some 90% of CUs around the country will provide data to them. It will include registered rep activity, Gross dealer Commissions Assets Under Management, what part of AUM is brokerage or annuities and other information," said Snyder. "It's to give us a snapshot of the industry that we don't have right now. We've all known that the 5300s (NCUA CU call reports) don't give us the information we need to see where we are and where we need to go." Snyder said Callahan's has the ability to gather and analyze the data. It is hoped that the first release, which contains year-end 2005 results, will be available for discussion at NACUSO's annual conference in early May.
Better analysis will allow CU executives to see how effective their investment programs are and how profitable they are compared to others. The model is web-based, real-time and it will be easy to upload data to Callahan's. Once an industry snapshot is available, regional workshops may be set to consider trend data and share ideas.
The conference featured a session on the Federal Reserve's Regulation R, which prohibits individuals who are engaged in securities underwriting, sale, and distribution from serving as a director, officer, or employee of a member bank. Reg R emerged nearly seven years after passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Fed Board have issued proposed rules to implement its bank broker provisions, which stem from the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The rules permit banks to continue to perform certain securities activities without having to register as a broker with the SEC or to conduct such activities through a registered broker. Comments are due March 26. But to allow time to consider comments, the SEC has extended the temporary exemption from broker registration for banks and thrifts through July 2.
The big question: are CUs are subject to Reg-R? Snyder related the position of Guy Messick, NACUSO's general counsel, that it would benefit CUs and CUSOs if they were included. A discussion followed about NACUSO taking a more active role in lobbying for that and being more proactive on the regulatory side in general. "If NACUSO doesn't get involved, then who will?" asked one person, and many others nodded. "Who regulates us? The NCUA says it does but that isn't so." A consensus was reached that credit unions should be covered by Reg-R and NACUSO should take up the advocacy role necessary to make it happen.
