The Risk of Over Compliance
Credit union leaders today are focused... on capital requirements, PCA, regulations and regulators. If I consider the tone of the dialogue at credit union meetings from "Roundtable meetings" to conferences to association meetings and couple that perspective with a review of industry trade publications headlines I would presume that response to regulators was the raison d'art of credit unions.
In reality credit unions were organized of, by and for... Members. I fully understand the challenges of PCA, the economy, lack of consumer borrowing and the increasingly aggressive actions of our regulator. However our Members don't care that we have such challenges, they expect our focus to be on them - always.
As credit union leaders enter the strategic planning season (by the way it is time to make that process 24/7/365 - but I will address that in another article) they are looking to be the survivors in a world of ever diminishing numbers of credit unions.
Shifting from being on the "bleeding edge of compliance" to the leading edge of member response is key to the long-term success credit unions are seeking.
Check your resource allocation. How much resource have you dedicated to compliance, audit and portfolio analysis in the past two years? How does that compare with the amount of resources dedicated to analyzing and responding to members needs?
The survivors will have shifted their focus. Those credit unions spending inordinate resources in search of "regulator happiness" will be the merger candidates of the future.