Important Victory Against Unfair Credit Union Competition

It has been our privilege and honor to represent you as PACB’s members on CUSTF, the joint task force PACB and the Pennsylvania Bankers Association established over 2 ½ years ago. The moral and financial support from our membership and the hard work that all of us have put into fighting the credit unions is paying off.

Last month, the Commonwealth Court issued an important decision that reinforces our ongoing strategy that we have “drawn a line in the sand” against the explosion of community chartered credit unions in Pennsylvania. In response to legal actions CUSTF and several individual banks filed and pursued, the court overruled a decision by the state Department of Banking to provide a community charter to Belco Community CU, headquartered in Harrisburg.

The department was ordered to reexamine the decision and hold hearing(s) on the application. Further, CUSTF was granted access to documents filed in connection with Belco’s conversion application which the department had previously denied to us.

Again, this is a tremendously important victory for CUSTF and our industry. Without your financial contributions and vigilance in standing up to unfair credit union competition, we would not be able to announce this decision to you. If your community bank has not contributed to CUSTF yet, please consider doing so. If you have previously contributed, please contribute your 2007 Fair Share assessment. As we all know, litigation is expensive and in order to keep winning, we need every PACB member participating!

As always, please feel free to contact any of us as your PACB members on CUSTF if you have any questions or concerns: Dave Hunsicker, President/CEO of New Tripoli Bank (Co-Chair of CUSTF); Dick Kunsch, President/CEO, Phoenixville Federal Bank & Trust; Brent L. Peters, President/CEO, East Penn Bank; Martin Brown, President/CEO, Ambler Savings Bank; and Bud Maus, Senior Regional Manager of First Commonwealth Bank of Indiana.