RALEIGH, N.C.–Maurice R. Smith, CEO of Local Government FCU and Civic Federal Credit Union, has been elected the new chairman of the National Cooperative Bank (NCB).
The NCB board of directors consists of individuals from various sectors of cooperatives and community development organizations across the United States, including housing, grocery, small business, healthcare and credit unions. Pat Jury, former CEO of the Iowa CU League, also serves on the NCB board.
The National Cooperative Bank was chartered in 1978 by an act of Congress, and later privatized in 1981 as a cooperative to provide financial services to housing and commercial cooperatives across the United States. Credit unions, as cooperatives, remain a primary sector for NCB, which said it has growing portfolio of credit unions that call the Bank its main provider of wholesale depository and correspondent banking services.
“NCB is a mission-driven financial institution,” said Smith. “I am enamored by the principles that bind credit unions. Our focus on members’ wellbeing, democratic control and community are core values that define us as cooperatives. NCB embraces these ideals. Much of what NCB does is familiar to me. Our terms of art are similar. As financial intermediaries, our functions are comparable. For NCB, the differences are not plentiful.
Improving Value Proposition
“In a typical board meeting discussion, the management and directors focus on the same matters that credit unions leaders face,” Smith continued. “Like credit unions, NCB directors concentrate their attention on how to improve the value proposition for cooperatives and their members. We deliberate the state of affairs that faces members of all kinds of mutually owned organizations. We ask how the Bank can make a difference. Then we align our strategies to help credit unions and other cooperatives thrive.”
Chuck Snyder, CEO of NCB, was early in his career the president of Temporaries Federal Credit Union early in his career.
“Given our shared cooperative roots, credit unions and NCB have had a mutually beneficial relationship since NCB’s inception,” stated Snyder. “We share a common thinking about how community good is created. This begins with empowering people through ownership and free participation to make their own choices. NCB embraces these values”.