"Democracy Has Prevailed," Says One CU CEO

The National Center for Member Trust, which was created by two CU CEOs to advocate on behalf of the credit union charter, said it was pleased to see DFCU Financial cancel its plans to become a bank.

"Democracy has prevailed," said Bucky Sebastian, CEO of GTE FederFCU and chairman of the nonprofit NCMT. "Despite a willingness to spend in excess of $1.2 million of member's funds-much of it on consultants and pro-conversion mailings and phone banks-the DFCU board could not obscure from its members the fact that the members lose when a member-owned credit union becomes an investor-owned bank."

"With $229 million of member-owned equity at stake, we are pleased that DFCU's board has recognized that its members are better served by remaining a credit union, rather than dividing much of this equity up amongst themselves and senior management, as has happened at nearly 20 former credit unions around the country," he continued. "If DFCU's leadership has lost faith in its ability to successfully manage and grow one of the nation's largest credit unions-with nearly $2 billion in assets-in one of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, we are confident that the member-owners can identify a board and management team that would be honored to serve them."