The SAFE Mega-me Merger: Awaiting Regulatory Approvals?

                                    Awaiting A Regulatory Blessing?

According to the SAFE Board:  "The combination process includes regulatory approvals, detailed integration planning, and ultimately, a SAFE member vote."

As easy as 1-2-3! 1) Regulatory approvals, 2) a detailed integration plan, and ultimately 3) a SAFE member vote. And BINGO!, the 85-year SAFE Credit Union charter is no more!

😎 Does this official outline of the merger process from the SAFE leadership make sense? 

Of course it doesn't! Shouldn't the 11-member SAFE Board - with a legal, fiduciary duty to 245,000 members in California - feel some obligation to first discuss the reasons for leaving home, and eloping to Washington, for a marriage of convenience with this hussie Huskie? Say perhaps, with "the family" in Sacramento? 

✔ Have the 245,000 SAFE member-owners requested this merger? No!

✔  Have the 245,000 SAFE members seen the "definitive merger agreement"? No!

✔  Have the 245,000 SAFE members been asked for input? No!

✔  Are the 245,000 SAFE members aware of the financial disadvantages of this merger [link]? No.

✔ Will the majority of all 245,000 SAFE members vote for this merger? No!

😎  Will   - a regulatory agency steeped in its role of consumer protection - approve a shotgun marriage?

  Department of Financial Protection and.. I do? Such a tinder moment!

CU Mergers And Conversions? NCUA Asks For Input; while California DFPI?

   Lets Hope Not!

DFPI likes to boast of its consumer protection and of California as "the charter of choice" for credit unions. The SAFE Board evidently doesn't believe DFPI is all it's quacked up to be. Instead, SAFE has chosen to "give it up" - even "give it away"! - and move to Washington!

NCUA - never really famous for "member engagement" - is reviewing its rules on merger and conversions; and has asked for input from the public! One comment on mergers comes from a new CU activist group, Endangered Small Credit Union Defense (ESCUD) [link]: 

✔ "ESCUD believes member engagement and notification should be strengthened, not weakened." 

✔ "Members are the owners of the cooperative. At the precise moment they risk losing their not-for-profit ownership rights, profit-sharing model, tax-exempt structure, and community-focused mission, they deserve clear, prominent, timely, and effective disclosures." 

✔ "We urge the NCUA to ensure that any final rule maintains — or even enhances — meaningful member awareness and participation rather than reducing procedural safeguards in charter-ending transactions."

😎 As to the "charter of choice", DFPI's latest "innovation" may be doing what was once thought impossible... 

  ... making NCUA look good!