By Ray Birch
WASHINGTON—For decades, small credit unions have served as the connective tissue of the cooperative movement—deeply rooted in communities, fields of membership, and local trust. But in today’s retail financial-services marketplace, many are struggling simply to keep their heads above water.
Acknowledging those pressures, America’s Credit Unions on Tuesday took a new step aimed at elevating small credit unions’ concerns by launching the Small Credit Union Advocacy Advisory Panel designed to sharpen and strengthen the voice of small CUs in advocacy discussions.
As CUToday.info has extensively reported, the industry’s growth has increasingly tilted toward the largest institutions, which now account for the bulk of member, asset, and loan expansion, while many small credit unions continue to lose ground across key performance measures. They still account for 40% of all credit unions and the challenges they face are not just one of scale, but of capacity.
“There are a lot of pressures to operating a credit union regardless of size,” America’s Credit Unions President and CEO Scott Simpson said in an interview with CUToday.info. “But when you run a small credit union, you wear all the hats. You can’t hand the baton to team members necessarily. So, the pressure is exponentially more difficult.”
That reality—CEOs serving simultaneously as compliance officers, strategists, risk managers, and sometimes even front-line problem solvers—has become the defining challenge for small institutions. Technology demands, fraud risks, and increasingly complex regulatory requirements do not scale down neatly for a $50 million or $150 million credit union with a lean staff.
“It’s not nefarious intent,” Simpson said of the forces bearing down on small institutions. “It’s market-force reality. The marketplace demands more—because of technology, fraud, and compliance across very complex regulatory jurisdictions—and all of those things make operating a credit union more difficult.”
Compliance Pressure Hits Small CUs Hardest
Those pressures were front and center during recent discussions among small credit union leaders, including meetings of America’s Credit Unions’ Small Credit Union Committee, as well as a call between small credit union CEOs and Simpson . What he heard was familiar—and increasingly urgent.
“They’re so busy keeping the doors open, managing their credit unions,” Simpson said. “Everything that’s in the way of that is top of mind—regulatory pressures, market pressures, all of it coming to bear at once.”
Among the most common frustrations: a one-size-fits-all regulatory environment that fails to account for the risk profile, staffing realities, and business models of small institutions.
“They want somebody to speak back to their government—whether that’s a state regulator, a federal regulator, or lawmakers,” Simpson said. “They want those policymakers to use the authority they already have to bring relief, or at least to consider small credit unions differently. Because we all know one-size-fits-all doesn’t apply.”
Small credit unions are not asking to be exempt from oversight, he emphasized—but they are asking for proportionality, risk-based supervision, and recognition that compliance burdens fall far harder on institutions with limited staff and resources.
A New Advocacy Funnel—Built Specifically For Small CUs
Those concerns are exactly what prompted America’s Credit Unions to launch its new Small Credit Union Advocacy Advisory Panel, a move Simpson described as an effort to sharpen—not dilute—the association’s advocacy on behalf of small institutions.
The panel is designed to create a more direct channel between small credit unions and ACU’s advocacy machinery, ensuring their priorities don’t get lost amid louder, more urgent industry debates.
“In lawmaking and politics—and even inside a trade association—not every voice finds its way to the marketplace the same way,” Simpson said. “Sometimes urgent matters overpower the important ones. This is an attempt to make sure we’re carving out time and capacity for direct feedback from this category of credit unions.”
Unlike existing committees with broader mandates, the new panel is tightly focused on advocacy: identifying regulatory-relief opportunities, informing legislative strategy, and giving policymakers a clearer picture of how rules land on the smallest institutions.
Simpson stressed that the initiative is meant to be additive, not duplicative. America’s Credit Unions’ Small Credit Union Committee, a board-appointed body, continues to provide wide-ranging insight into the needs of small institutions. The new panel, by contrast, serves as a targeted funnel—zeroed in on advocacy-specific concerns and designed to inform staff and leadership in real time.
Scott Simpson
Listening Without Losing The Cooperative Soul
At the same time, Simpson was careful to draw a line around what a trade association can—and cannot—do.
“Every credit union is a cooperative governed by the voice of its membership,” he said. “America's Credit Unions can’t enforce what an individual credit union should or should not do, and we shouldn’t. We can’t take away that self-determination.”
The role of the association, he said, is to protect the ecosystem in which credit unions operate—by aggregating resources, amplifying voices, and advocating for a regulatory environment that allows institutions of all sizes to succeed.
Just as important, Simpson said, is recognizing that “small credit union” is not a monolithic category.
“It’s irresponsible to consider that all small credit unions see the world the same way,” he said. “They don’t.”
That’s why ACU intends for the advisory panel to reflect a cross-section of institutions—across geography, ideology, fields of membership, and business focus—so the association can synthesize both shared needs and meaningful differences.
A Test Of Whether The Movement Can Bend Without Breaking
For small credit unions, the stakes are high. Many are, as Simpson put it, “swimming upstream” against market forces that reward scale, specialization, and technological might. Whether advocacy can meaningfully bend those forces—without undermining the cooperative model—remains an open question.
America’s Credit Unions’ new Small Credit Union Advocacy Advisory Panel is not a cure-all, Simpson explained. But it is a recognition that survival and relevance for small credit unions will depend, in part, on whether their voices are heard clearly, consistently, and early—before policy decisions are locked in.
To apply to be a member of the Small Credit Union Advocacy Advisory Panel, click here.