Credit union CFOs took advantage of a pilot program at the CUNA CFO Council Conference designed to stimulate in-depth conversations on pressing industry topics.

The two-hour discussion, which took place just prior to the start of the conference, drew 50 attendees from credit unions around the country with a wide variance in asset size—ranging from $10 million to $8 billion.

"People were very open to exchanging ideas, and I believe that the smaller credit unions got a big benefit out of hearing the larger credit unions speak," says Steven Arbaugh, CFO at $3.3 billion asset SECU in Linthicum, Md., and CUNA CFO Council vice chair. "We had great dialogue in the room."

Arbaugh, who served as moderator, based the format on CFO discussion sessions he guides in the Washington, D.C. region that have proven popular.

The CFO Exchange targeted topics that the main conference agenda didn't address, or that lend to more intense, back-and-forth idea sharing. Workshop attendees voted on the priority of topics via an advance survey. They indicated overwhelmingly to prioritize discussion of the Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) accounting standard that will go into effect for fiscal years beginning after Dec. 15, 2020.

"People are starting to think about how they're going to get ready for this standard," Arbaugh says.

Other topics included:

• NCUA examination requirements, particularly involving new provisions on interest rate risk, cybersecurity, and data protection.
• Effects of the rising interest rate environment, including pricing strategies for certificate and money market products.
• Branch profitability.
• Enterprise risk management.

►Click here for more conference coverage from CUNA News, and get live updates on Twitter via @AdamMertzCUNA, @cumagazine, and  @CUNACouncils, and by using the #CFOCouncil hashtag. Learn more about the CUNA CFO Council, a member-led professional society for credit union executives, at cunacouncils.org.