Nussle: Don’t Blame Us for Lack of Diversity at Large Banks
Diversity and inclusion standards should not be uniformly applied at financial institutions, as CUNA has adopted diversity and inclusion as a core set of principles.
Credit unions should not be held accountable for the lack of diversity, equity and inclusion at the nation’s largest banks, CUNA President Jim Nussle said Wednesday.
Nussle’s comments were contained in a letter to House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), and Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), chair of the panel’s Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee, who, on Wednesday released a report and legislative recommendations on how to expand diversity at financial institutions.
That report is based on a committee survey of the nation’s largest banks.
“CUNA and our credit union members, however, are very concerned by the fact that the legislative recommendations and proposed bills stemming from the report–as currently written–apply to all financial institutions without any regard to size or other unique characteristics,” Nussle wrote.
As part of the study, the Democratic committee staff asked the 44 largest bank holding companies and savings and loan holding companies with $50 billion in assets a series of questions about diversity at their institutions.
The survey showed that women made up less than one-third of the executive and senior-level workforce, while Blacks and Latinos made up 4% or less.
The report recommends, among other things, that financial services providers be required to respond to diversity data requests from regulators.
Responding to the report, Nussle said that CUNA’s board of directors recently voted to add diversity and inclusion to the core set of principles that guide the work of credit unions.
He said that financial regulators specifically rejected the notion that diversity and inclusion standards should be uniformly applied at financial institutions.
He said that 79% of all federally insured credit unions have 50 or fewer personnel and that credit unions have an average of $286 million in assets.
“Thus, credit unions have significantly less resources to accomplish diversity and inclusion initiatives than large banks and, accordingly, should not be judged using identical assessment criteria or subjected to identical obligations,” Nussle wrote.