The National Credit Union Administration’s vice chairman entered hostile territory this week, offering an olive branch to a group of North Carolina bankers.
But the bankers greeted the appearance with polite indifference, an indication that his outreach likely will not thaw the frosty relations between banks and credit unions.
Speaking at the North Carolina Bankers Association’s 110th annual convention, Rodney E. Hood, a former banker turned credit union regulator, highlighted the adversaries’ mutual objectives on issues such as regulatory relief, data security, homeownership, and predatory lending.
“I firmly believe that credit unions and banks have a shared vision and common goals,” Mr. Hood said.
But Thad Woodard, the trade group’s president and chief executive officer, said the 450 bankers in attendance were less-than-enthusiastic about Mr. Hood’s presence.
“There was not a lot of bubbly effervescence in the room,” Mr. Woodard said. “His presentation had the impact of a hard-thrown feather.”
Frederick Willetts 3d, the president and CEO of the $782 million-asset Cooperative Bank in Wilmington, said that even though Mr. Hood “touched on some of the areas that we have in common, he skirted all the areas” that separate banks and credit unions.
“It was a feel-good speech, there wasn’t anything substantial to it.”
Animosity between banks and credit unions is certainly nothing new. Banks have been fuming for years about the fact that credit unions have expanded their fields of membership and increased business lending while retaining their tax-exempt status. Credit unions, meanwhile, have argued that they are simply meeting a need by serving customers that banks have ignored.
Against this partisan backdrop, Mr. Hood’s appearance at a banking convention is unusual. The vice chairman said that even though his speech was not the start of an NCUA-wide initiative to improve relations with the banking industry, it does reflect his personal goal of increasing understanding between the two industries.
“I, as vice chair, would say that it’s definitely an outreach effort on my part,” he said.
President Bush appointed Mr. Hood, a Charlotte native, to the NCUA board Nov. 15. He has spent nearly 20 years working on affordable housing and community development issues at NationsBank Corp. (now Bank of America Corp.) and Wells Fargo & Co., among other companies.
Mr. Woodard, who has known Mr. Hood since 1990, invited the vice chairman to speak at the convention.
“We’re not shy about bringing people that our controversial into our membership,” Mr. Woodard said. “We want to listen and learn.”
Mr. Hood said in an interview after the speech that he accepted the offer because he felt it was “an important opportunity to reach out and educate the banking industry about credit unions.”
He said he received a warm and gracious reception from the bankers, some of whom even approached him after the speech to express their appreciation.
He also said he did not address controversial issues, such as tax exemption and credit-union-to-mutual-thrift conversions, because “that was not the goal.”
Carrie Hunt, the senior counsel and director of regulatory affairs at the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, said she welcomed Mr. Hood’s effort to engage the bankers.
“I think it’s great that vice chairman Hood is willing to keep an open dialogue,” Ms. Hunt said. “There are certain issues that I think we can all find common ground on, and reg relief is one of them.”
Mr. Woodard said that the bankers in attendance learned that “Rodney is here, that he is an honorable man, [and] that he is receptive to communication, and in the political world, that receptivity is very important if progress is to be made.”
