KENNEWICK, Wash.–Endangered Small Credit Union Defense (ESCUD) has announced a change on its board and said it held a number of meetings on Capitol Hill that were productive.
The organization said Joshua Urbick, CEO of IBEW 26 FCU in Maryland, has exited its board, and Jay Williamson, CEO of the $450-million American Southwest CU in Sierra Vista, Ariz. has joined the board.
“I’m honored to be a part of the credit union movement and support small credit unions and our industry,” said Williamson in a statement. “I work at a credit union at the top of the spectrum and I have previously worked at a credit union that was very small, and both face challenges that are worth finding solutions to resolve and I want to be part of the solution.”
As the CU Daily reports separately, Urbick left the ESCUD board to concentrate on the formation of a new national group for smaller CUs.
“We are excited to benefit from Jay’s skills and experience, particularly per his perspective of CUs that are nearly $500 million in assets, and what their regulatory relief needs are,” said Doug Wadsworth, president and CEO of Tri Communities Credit Union in Kennewick, Wash., who led the foundation of ESCUD.
Meetings in Washington
In addtion, Wadsworth said that he and Sarah McNeil, CEO of United Trades FCU in Portland, Ore., who is also an ESCUD board member, travelled to Capitol Hill where they met with multiple legislative offices.
“We introduced our ESCUD organization as a new voice exclusively for our small CU regulatory advocacy needs,” Wadsworth said. “We shared with legislative staffers that although we are generally aligned with trade associations like Go West, ACU and DCUC, and we seek to support their efforts, we are concerned our small CU voices are sometimes drowned out, and we have some unique regulatory relief needs that rarely get the representation we feel they deserve.”
Wadsworth said that all the offices with which he and McNeill met expressed concern about the trend of industry consolidation and the ongoing disappearance of our smallest CUs, and wanted to discuss ways to help the smallest CUs survive and thrive.
Problem Regs ID’d
“They wanted us to tell them exactly which regs were making our survival more difficult, so we talked about HMDA, CECL, BSA, NMLS, examiner over-compliance pressure and exam exhaustion,” Wadsworth said. “We also directed the staffers to review the regulatory relief priorities that are listed on our ESCUD website.”
He added that they were also able to share their opposition to potential legislation related to a 10% rate cap on cards and any changes to interchange.
