LOS ANGELES—Here’s a statement credit unions in this state and its neighboring Nevada would not have heard just a few years ago.
“We have higher average ROA than the national average,” announced Diana Dykstra, CEO of the league that serves both those states. “We haven’t been able to say that for a while.”
In other announcements made by Dykstra during the California/Nevada leagues’ REACH Conference here:
* Advocacy, said Dykstra, consumes 60% of the leagues’ focus. “Legislatively, we had 185 bills that would have impacted credit unions that we really had to pay attention to,” said Dykstra. “All of those bills, the things harmful to credit unions were struck out of them or they never made it to a vote. We were very disappointed not to get a data security bill across the finish line. We will have a (data security) bill in February that we think will be meaningful. We will be in partnership with the retailers on the bill that we think will protect credit unions and members at large.”
* One particular piece of legislation Dykstra said was successfully supported and passed related to the upstart “taxi” companies such as Uber and Lyft. “These companies are allowing people to enter their personal cars into livery service, and once you do that your personal insurance no longer covers it in the event of damage. It dawned on us that we don’t know if our members our using their cars in this way, and that they would not be covered for damages if in an accident.” Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill extending liability coverage to drivers who work for those services.
* Credit unions have raised $900,000 prior to International CU Day for Credit Unions for Kids in 2014.
* Dykstra described NCUA’s initial risk-based capital proposal has having “gone a little overboard” and as an example where the agency ‘”really didn’t have a clue. We expect a rule at the end of December, but the big deal is the second comment period.”