WASHINGTON – NAFCU directors yesterday rejected the latest CUNA bid to merge the two credit union trade associations, saying NAFCU's 800 members overwhelmingly prefer independence.
"Our members have been very clear in their desire to keep NAFCU as a separate organization with direct membership focused on the federal charter," said NAFCU Chairman Brad Beal, during the first day of the group’s annual Congressional Caucus.
"That won’t happen," said Michael Lussier, another NAFCU board member. "Our board will not merge with CUNA. It’s been discussed and dismissed as an issue."
Beal, the president of Nevada FCU, said the NAFCU board has discussed CUNA overtures "repeatedly," the most recent time last year, and rejected the idea of a combination of the two credit union groups.
CUNA President Dan Mica has called for a merger of the two trade associations on a number of occasions, most recent last month when he said it was one of his final priority items before he exits CUNA. "I'm going to say this, and I know it's going to get me into trouble, but I hope that credit unions will take this as an opportunity to bring CUNA and NAFCU together," Mica told The Credit Union Journal. "Credit unions have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in order to have a separate voice and a separate trade association."
Several attendees to NAFCU’s conference noted the disparity in the financial conditions of the two associations would pose an impediment to a merger.
CUNA has lost almost $14 million in the past two years, $8 million in 2008, and its net worth has fallen below that of the far smaller NAFCU, which remains in the black, which doubled its net income last year to $397,000. Over the past two years CUNA’s net assets, which is equivalent to net worth, fell from more than $15 million to $2.7 million, while NAFCU’s have increased to $8.7 million.
