Nussle, Berger Talk Merger Plans

The two credit union lobbying groups, CUNA and NAFCU, announced plans to merge on Aug. 1 into a new organization to be called America’s Credit Unions, headquartered in Washington, D.C.

CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle will take over the new group and NAFCU President/CEO Dan Berger plans to step aside to pursue other opportunities once the merger is legally final, which is expected to be by January 2024.

Many questions were raised about how this new organization would function and what it would look like if CUNA and NAFCU members vote to approve.

CU Times spoke with Nussle and Berger on Aug. 10 and learned the two longtime leaders are looking at the big picture of what America’s Credit Union will be, while their teams are working out specific details.

The following is the conversation that has been edited for space, context and style.

CU Times: Why merge now?

Berger: I think it started with just a conversation with my Chair Tom DeWitt and then the CUNA Chair Brad Green just ­going, ‘Hey, let’s get together during GAC and talk about some opportunities so we can continue to develop relationships and network and collaborate and coordinate.’ And it just kind of stemmed from that.

There’s just a natural progression and discussion and then the reality came for a lot of folks, I think with the ongoing consolidation in our industry. I mean, when I started here, I guess it was 14 or 15,000 credit unions or something. And now there’s 4,700. The movement, the industry can’t afford two national trade associations. It’s just not a sustainable business model from a business sense. But more importantly, having one voice just makes a super powerful new trade association moving forward that can deal with the prudential regulators to, you know, to do battle on Capitol Hill. And so I think the opportunity just presented itself and the discussions just matured over the last few months.

CU Times: Can you explain what this organization will look like as compared to what CUNA and NAFCU are now?

Nussle: Well, let me start and I know Dan will have a lot to contribute because we’ve been working together on this, as have our boards. I mean, first and foremost, the vision for the future … it’s from the ground up. It’s from our members. It’s from them. Talking to our board members about the need for one voice in Washington, strong advocacy and amazing compliance, best of class; all of those are the messages that they’ve been hearing over the years. And that’s in part why they came together. Our organizations have never been stronger. And so both organizations came into this from a position of strength. So as we think about the future, we think about those things that create the best of CUNA and NAFCU and create a brand new organization that will not be CUNA 2.0 or NAFCU 2.0. But rather, America’s Credit Unions, a new organization that will focus on the future for credit unions and build on our great tradition the things that we’ve done well and done together over the course of our history.

Berger: That’s exactly right, Jim. Both boards are committed to a new trade association moving forward with a hyper-aggressive focus on advocacy. And then of course, the new transition board that was announced has the same focus. And so going forward, they have a mission to protect and strengthen credit unions. So you’ll see that going forward. But everybody’s in agreement here. Both boards unanimously support this. I think the merger does pass from the overwhelming support that I’ve heard. We still have some work to do in, in some pockets, like Jim mentioned, out there. They’re just looking for more information. They didn’t say ‘no’, but they just said, ‘Hey, I’d like to get a little more information about whatever.’ So those issues will come, those details will follow. But we’re excited! And so Jim and I will be on the road together a lot here in the next, I guess it’s 60 days or so … and the vote will probably start at the end of this month and probably end in the beginning of November. We’re going to be out there pushing the value proposition for this thing.

CU Times: What have you two focused on since the announcement?

Nussle: We’ve been spending quite a bit of time talking to our teams and understanding their thoughts, concerns, questions. The most important aspect of this for me will be the team I assemble, because if we don’t assemble a strong team, you can ask a lot of questions, you can say a lot of things about your value proposition, you can do a lot of things or try to do a lot of things, but you stand on the shoulders of your team. So that’s first and foremost.

We’ve invested a lot of time there for that reason, and that will continue. So, that’s what has been a lot of it. It’s also been fielding some good questions and initial comments from our members.

CU Times: What questions have you heard from members who might be for or against?

Berger: I haven’t got any specific questions. They just said they want to hear more, and they’re just going to wait and learn more, and wait for some more details to come out … some of these folks are analytical and they’re waiting for more details to come, but nothing really specific on my end that I can tell you at this point. They may percolate up later and I’ll have a better grasp of it then, but this is relatively new, so no one has any real specific questions to me yet.

CU Times: Will you keep offices in D.C. and Madison, Wis.?

Nussle: Yeah … so the thing I do know is that our headquarters will be in Washington, D.C. It is for both of our associations today. That will not change. Having said that, that’s a perfect example of ‘I don’t know.’ That’s a detail that is yet to be determined. We’re building agile sprint teams around a lot of these questions. We have a number of conferences we have to decide. We have a number of things like that. We have a team to build and a lot of issues to work out. So it’s a great question. It’s a worthy question, don’t misunderstand me, but we’re not yet even to that level.

CU Times: Thoughts on losing the names CUNA and NAFCU?

Nussle: When I went to the NAFCU team, and I said it to my CUNA team as well … one of the first things I told them, I said, ‘You need to be extremely proud of what you have built at NAFCU and what you’ve built at CUNA. We’re not asking you to walk away. We’re not asking you to just forget all about it.’ I mean, my goodness, today is our 89th anniversary of the meeting in Estes Park when credit union leaders got together to form the Credit Union National Association. We’re not going to forget where we came from! That’s part of both of our DNA. But the issue, the challenge is, how do we take that great history and build an even more amazing future? That’s the challenge.

Berger: Well, America’s Credit Unions was kind of the marching orders that were given to Jim and myself. This is not going to be CUNA 2.0. This is not going to be NAFCU 2.0. This is going to be a brand new trade association, a brand new powerhouse!

And so I think that was part of the decision making that the boards had as well, ‘Hey, we’re creating a brand new trade association!’ And Jim is going to put together the best of the best from both and create this powerhouse.

I mean, it could have been merged into NAFCU or NAFCU merged into CUNA and saved the names and that kind of stuff. But [the boards] intentionally came up with America’s Credit Unions because it’s a brand new trade association moving forward. And I’m excited for it. So I look forward to seeing it all come together.

Nussle: I’ll tell you … we are desperately, or at least I am desperately trying to get everybody to never use an acronym with regard to this ever again. Because I think people are sick of acronyms <laughs>.