Several events you may have overlooked. I believe each has significance for credit unions’ future.
- GESA credit union will purchase the Salem based Oregon Bancorp at at purchase price of $43-$45 per share. Prior to the announcement the bank’s publicly shares had traded around $27 or lower for the past year.
According to a Banking Dive article, this is the fifth proposed whole bank purchases by credit unions in 2026. The report says there was a record 22 bank purchases in 2024. The number. fell to 16 last year.
- Bloomberg News reports the US 30-year bond yield is trading above 5% for the longest stretch since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007. One factor is the US government’s detonating fiscal situation. Total Treasury debt is $31 trillion or about the same size as US GDP. Total debt was only $4.7 trillion in 2007. Interest payments on the debt not total $1.0 trillion per year. This government borrowing is occurring at the same time debt issuance in the private sector for AI and data center growth is expanding by hundreds of billions of bond and corporate borrowing.
- Two days ago the House Committee on Financial Services held the first Congressional hearing on the Federal Home Loan Bank system in 15 years. The 11 regional Federal Home Loan Banks made $677 billion in loans to financial institutions in 2025. Two notes from this Next City’s The Bottom Line report on the hearing:
After Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Banks are the third-largest “government-sponsored enterprise” created by Congress to support the housing market, , ,
Today, . .the nation’s largest banks and private equity funds on Wall Street have become the biggest borrowers from Federal Home Loan Banks — and recent analysis shows those large institutions no longer use those funds to boost their residential mortgage lending, as was the original purpose of the Federal Home Loan Banks. . .
The articles conclusion: Even if all the reforms discussed in today’s hearing were to pass, many communities won’t benefit from those changes without local banks or credit unions to make use of those changes.
And what has the CLF been doing to assist credit union mortgage lending?
The Rest of the Story
In and earlier post this week, I lifted a headline from a front page story in Credit Union Times April 22, 1992, “High Roller” Lifestyle called “contemptible” in NCUA Memorandum. Several readers asked for more details.
The opening paragraphs in a very. long account:
Former credit union leader RichardD. Mangone has been enjoying the kind of retirement many people dream about: frequent cross-country trips, first-class accommodations, top-notch entertainment and more–all free of charge.
But Mangone’s “high roller” lifestyle was brought down to earth this month by court-imposed travel restrictions. The reason, according to National Credit Union attorneys, is that Mangone’s “life of Riley” has been at the expense of defrauded credit union members.
Since August 26, 1991, Mangone, most recently the president of Digital Employees Federal Credit Union, has been under a court order to limit his spending to $8,000 a month. The order was imposed to prevent Mangone from draining or transferring his assets while lawsuits are pending against him.
Mangone has been sued by NCUA, Digital Employees, and Berkshire County Savings Bank for his role in an alleged real estate loan scam.
The Article’s Relevance Today
Following several additional paragraphs, there is a related story with the title: Digital Members Set to Vote on New Board
So there was a time in the not too distant past when the NCUA, the members, the credit union’s new leadership and the community stepped up to hold self-serving leaders to account. Without leaders with integrity, governmental regulation and exams, internal governance and leader accountability are just concepts, not meaningful checks and balances.
The coop system did have such individuals who rose to their responsibility in the past. There was a credit union press which published traditional investigative journalism. And in the present?