Business View Magazine | November 2020

94 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2020 “We also have a Compliance Assistance Division made up of all attorneys that answer our members’ complicated compliance questions; a Marketing Division; an Events Planning Division; an Education Division that creates all our educational content inhouse; a Finance Division, and HR. So we’re very much like any other company with a plethora of divisions throughout the organization.” BVM: What is currently at the top of the agenda? Berger: “Other than COVID-19, the election is a high priority right now. We are a non-partisan organization with friends on both sides of the aisle. But we’re mostly playing defense. There are always attacks by the banking lobbyists against the credit unions’ tax exemption, so we’ve taken a defensive posture at this time. But there are other items we want to get done. We want to serve underserved areas and low income areas. And the banking industry keeps trying to prevent us from doing that. Those are some of the battles we’re working on. “Our advantage, in the banks’ eyes, is that credit unions are not-for-profit financial institutions, and responsible only to their members. It’s a cooperative; one member, one vote. The members own the financial institution. Unlike the big banks or community banks – you don’t have shareholders and Wall Street analysts looking at your quarterly stock prices. So the credit unions can plan better for the long-term. Everything is done through the filter of what’s in the best interests of the membership.” BVM: What does the future look like for the credit union industry and what is NAFCU’s offensive game plan? Berger: “After the financial crisis of 2008/09, there was a flight to safety. We grew from about 85 million members of American credit unions to well over 100 million. People were tired of big banks being bailed out with taxpayer money. And, so now, we represent over 122 million American consumers. We’re focused on Berger: “We have 70 employees focused on our key objectives. We have a Regulatory Affairs Division for lobbying the White House, the NCUA (our provincial regulator), the SBA, Treasury, and others along those lines. Then we have a Legislative Affairs Division made up of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, and they lobby Congress at Capitol Hill. Our Research & Economics Division makes all of us look smart. Because when we’re educating policy makers, we’re very data-driven; focusing on the facts and the figures. Most lobbyists can open doors and get meetings, but it’s the facts and the data that wins the arguments. Those metrics are crucial.