SEATAC, Wash. (2/4/16)--A pair of Washington-based credit union leaders traveled to South Korea recently to present at the National Credit Union Federation of Korea’s 55th annual conference.

Dan Hein, CEO of Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air Employees CU, SeaTac, and Carla Altepeter, president/CEO, Numerica CU, Spokane, received invitations to the event after previous work with the nation’s credit unions (Anthem Feb. 2).

Hein visited and toured the federation offices in 2012 while serving as vice president of administration and finance for the Northwest Credit Union Association. Altepeter first visited in 2000 as a delegate of the World Council of Credit Unions.

Because the credit union movement in the Republic of Korea is younger than that of the United States, they “look to us in the U.S. and other more advanced systems to help them grow their credit unions,” Altepeter said. Altepeter shared tips with the federation for attracting younger members to credit unions.

Hein said that Korean credit union leaders were interested in learning about a number of different issues, including how U.S. credit unions work with regulators, the process by which credit unions merge, and how competitive credit unions are in terms of rates and product offerings.

Both Altepeter and Hein said they enjoyed sharing insights about U.S. credit unions with their South Korean counterparts, but they valued what they learned in return perhaps even more.

The visit was “really humbling because of the grassroots work being done to help communities,” Altepeter said.

Added Hein: “(Credit unions) have all of their (information technology) on one system, so there’s a lot more working together.”

Hein said that credit unions could benefit from such collaboration.

“The more we can do together, the better off we’ll be,” he said.