At a Nov. 6 field hearing in Las Vegas, Pahranagat Valley Federal Credit Union CEO Robin Simmers told a House Small Business Committee Subcommittee that credit unions face a crisis of creeping complexity with respect to regulatory burdens that is made more challenging for small institutions because they do not have the scale of larger institutions but are required to follow many of the same regulations.

Simmers told the committee that her story is not unlike that of many small credit union CEOs.  Her credit union has six full time employees, meaning that she wears many hats.  “With a team of 6, I am not only the CEO and Manager, but I serve as the teller, CFO, COO, HR department, Business Lending Officer, Mortgage Loan Officer and everything in between,” Simmers testified.

The burden her credit union faces deeply affects her community because Pahranagat Valley Federal Credit Union has been the only financial institution in town since 2011.

“For a 20 million credit union to adapt the one-size fits all approach from Washington, simply does not work,” Simmers told the Committee.  “Because of our closeness with our members, a major regulation designed for implementation at a large financial institutions simply does not make sense for us.”

The ever increasing regulatory burden for community financial institutions, Simmers said, is one of the key reasons that we are losing small credit unions at an “alarming rate.” Her full testimony is available here.