RSA's gotta brand new board

On January 26th at the Rutgers Student and Alumni Federal Credit Union's (RSA FCU) annual public meeting, a new board of directors was elected. The board expanded from five to nine members, with only one returning member from the previous board, Ken Buren, who founded the student & alumni credit union while a student at Rutgers.

Members of political action committee Empower Our Neighborhoods (EON) were elected to four seats, along with RSA FCU administrator Aimee Becker, a university senior.

Becker was instrumental in preventing a merger last fall between the RSA FCU and the Rutgers Federal Credit Union (RFCU), which serves university faculty and staff. EON petitioned to overturn the merger, on the basis that the RSA FCU board had approved it illegally. Two of the four board members who voted for the merger were no longer credit union members and were therefore disqualified from board membership. Discovery for the suit alleged that two others had fiduciary conflicts of interest in the matter which should have prevented them from voting. The fifth member, Buren, was absent from the meeting where the merger was approved.

 

The lawsuit further attacked the merger on grounds that membership in the larger RFCU had dropped off in the last year, and that the organization was carrying more than $2 million from toxic investments in the subprime housing market.

 

According to the new board chair, Charlie Kratovic, this merger would have adversely impacted student loans taken out through the RSA FCU. The proposed merger would have closed the RSA FCU and transferred ownership of the student loans to a private student loan company, Fynanz. In another possible conflict of interest, Fynanz also had business dealings with former board member and merger advocate Thomas O'Shea, through the Aspire Federal Credit Union. O'Shea stood to profit from the credit union consolidation deal.

Four of the five RSA FCU Board of Directors resigned in the wake of the merger scandal, clearing the way for the new majority.

The winter elections put to rest any further talks of credit union mergers, and the new leadership is pushing its ideas of how to improve the credit union's services.

Kristin Clark, board member and treasurer for Empower Our Neighborhoods, said they hope to expand the credit union's reach, making it easier for the university community to access their accounts. This includes more ATMs on campus (there is currently only one RSA FCU ATM in New Brunswick), and making it easier to get car loans or loans for continuing education, Clark said.

"We're (also) interested trying to set up home loans and mortgages for Rutgers alumni in New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, so that the people who like living in the town they went to school in have the opportunity to live there," said Sean Monahan, a new board member. "Another thing that is important is being a part of the community banking movement. I think it would be interesting to pursue some marketing materials comparing the credit union to the large commercial banks."

 

The community banking movement is a reference to the "Move Your Money" campaign, started by Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington. The campaign has spread over social media encouraging people to switch their accounts from the "too big to fail" Wall Street banks and instead invest in local banks and credit unions.

 

"I believe in community banking, it was something I'd been meaning to get involved with for a long time," Monahan said. "I am closing my PNC account, and moving my money over here."