Is the golden age of credit unions ending? Former SECU CEO Jim Blaine shares bold insights on the future of the movement.
Is this the twilight of the golden age of credit unions? On the show to discuss exactly that question is Jim Blaine, the now retired longtime CEO of SECU, the second biggest credit union in the country. Blaine may be retired but he still has opinions about credit unions, as evidenced in his blog, SECU – Just Asking!
In this podcast Blaine also digs deep into the question: what exactly is a credit union? We also talk about democracy in credit unions and often the lack thereof.
Recently Blaine has been sparring with his old employer with the flash point being the institution’s new leadership’s desire to move to risk based pricing for loans. Blaine is against that and successfully resisted it in his years as SECU’s CEO.
Blaine, definitely, is opinionated. But he also is – undeniably – a credit union champion. What he says may make you mad – it definitely made various NCUA employees mad. But listen up because Blaine, very clearly, articulates a philosophy about credit unions that he didn’t just spout, he lived in building SECU into a US credit union powerhouse.
