By Justin Hupfer

Over the past ten years that I’ve worked in the credit union movement, I’ve become increasingly convinced that more people would join as members if they knew the benefits credit unions provide consumers.  If more people understood the basic not-for-profit, cooperative governance structure that guides credit unions, it should be a no-brainer for consumers.  However, most people don’t know why they should care and are never provided with the information to understand the distinction between banks and credit unions.  While I fear that Dodd Frank teeters on disclosure/information overload for consumers, some provisions in the new law could help the public better understand the benefits of the credit union model.

PolicyWorks’ goal is to be a national leader in providing regulatory compliance services to credit unions. We focus on maintaining a team of passionate compliance experts with varied legal and operational backgrounds. Over the course of helping our credit union clients, we have found that they value timely, strategic compliance insight. In hopes of sharing some of what we know about relevant credit union compliance issues, we are launching our own blog, “The Works.” The Works will be devoted exclusively to credit union compliance topics—everything from Reg E overdraft rules to Reg Z credit card rules, Bank Secrecy Act, marketing compliance and more. The various members of our compliance team will each be regular contributors.