Bankers: "We'll Fight to the Death" (Misc News: March 23, 2012)
A special report from The Huffington Post sheds new light on the battle between community banks and credit unions on recent issues, particularly member business lending.
In the story, both sides take shots at one another over the foundations of their different business models.
"We'll fight this to the death because of the fundamental philosophical unfairness,” said Paul Merski, Independent Community Bankers chief economist about the debate over member business lending. “It's almost un-American, really."
"They don't get that we really are a different model," counters CUNA's CUNA senior vice president for communications Mark Wolff.
The story says that Spencer Bachus, the powerful chairman of the House Financial Services Committee called a meeting between the two sides in early February to hammer out a deal that would give both sides passage of the bills they were seeking.
But just before the meeting, the banking groups abruptly canceled the meeting.
"There was supposed to be a couple of joint meetings with different congressional offices and with the leadership of Financial Services. And the banks decided that we had too many bills in play and they didn't want to meet with us," said Linda Armyn, a senior vice president for Bethpage FCU in New York.
Click here to read the full story.
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Regulatory Affairs
