What are you most excited for during this year’s NAFCU Congressional Caucus? As an advocacy organization, bringing hundreds of our members to Washington to advocate directly with their members of Congress and federal regulators is incredibly powerful. Our speaker lineup is always strong – with administration officials and heads of agencies, to congressional committee chairs on both sides of the political aisle. This is an opportunity to hear what lawmakers and regulators are working on and how credit unions will be impacted, and in turn, allow credit unions to educate decision-makers on the impacts of their policies through their own personal stories. How has NAFCU evolved over the years. What changes do you see on the horizon for the organization? Over the past 56 years, we’ve achieved major wins for the industry – like consistently ensuring our industry’s taxexempt status and obtaining regulatory relief and reforms – because we’re not afraid to be aggressive to do what’s best for our members. We transformed our membership structure shortly after I became CEO to open our resources to all federally-insured credit unions. We recognized that in a consolidating financial services marketplace and with threatening regulatory overreach, the strength of the industry and our collective voice depended on it. We’ve experienced tremendous growth at NAFCU over the past several years. We went from representing 38 percent of the credit union industry in 2010 to 62 percent today. Early in my tenure, we conducted an internal review of all our products and services. While I was visiting with our members, the three things that I heard over and over again were: advocacy, compliance and education. Unless a product or service fits in one of those three buckets, we don’t do it anymore. This has made us much more resilient and focused. Advocacy will always be job one, it’s what we were founded to do. Our compliance assistance and educational resources are influenced by what’s happening in Congress, the White House, and among federal regulators. What does the evolution of fintech mean for the credit union industry and competition overall? Fintech and credit unions are not antonyms. Our industry prides itself on relationship banking and makes the investments to best serve their members – including offerings like mobile banking, virtual branches, and instant and P2P payments. But when it comes to technological innovation and nonregulated fintechs that operate like banks, we want all entities to operate on a fair, level playing field. Unregulated fintechs should be held to similar oversight, data security and fraud prevention standards to protect consumers and the entire financial system. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the financial industry in many ways. How has NAFCU supported credit unions during this challenging time? NAFCU was able to adapt quickly to meet our members’ changing needs. We advocated for credit union-specific relief. “Credit unions were able to support thousands of small businesses across the country when they needed financial assistance the most.”
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