Discover how credit union strategies shape the future of cooperative banking in this compelling conversation between host Mark Ritter and Ancin Cooley, founder of Synergy Credit Union Consulting and CU Communities. From his early days as an OCC examiner to running a consulting practice focused on strategic planning and board development, Cooley shares candid insights on what separates thriving credit unions from those that simply grow to size. They tackle uncomfortable topics, including organic growth versus acquisition strategies, member business lending best practices, CUSO investments, succession planning, and maintaining the cooperative banking philosophy while managing enterprise risk management in today's complex financial institution leadership landscape.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

✅ How organic growth creates better operators compared to acquisition-driven expansion strategies, and why every hundred million dollars in asset growth teaches painful but valuable lessons that can't be learned through purchases alone.

✅ The critical importance of sophisticated board development and enterprise risk management frameworks to protect member capital, especially when dealing with CUSO investments and preventing the extraction of capital outside the charter.

✅ Best practices for member business lending programs, including how to align your strategy with funding goals, determine appropriate risk appetite, and implement proper credit administration to balance growth with sound credit union strategy.

✅ Why succession planning and cross-functional education matter more than specialization, and how understanding multiple areas from compliance to interest rate risk creates stronger financial institution leadership capable of seeing the bigger picture.

Subscribe to Credit Union Conversations for the latest credit union trends and insights on loan volume and business lending! Connect with MBFS to boost your credit union’s growth today.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Intro: Meet Ancin Cooley

03:53 Cooley's journey from Wachovia teller to OCC examiner and witnessing organic growth challenges during the banking crisis

08:10 The strategic error of specialization and the importance of cross-functional financial institution leadership education

11:52 What makes credit unions successful across the spectrum from small community institutions to mega growth models

15:49 How board development and accountability gaps allow risky behavior in acquisition-driven credit union strategy approaches

20:23 Venture capital threats and extracting member capital through questionable CUSO investments and cooperative banking concerns

27:04 Priority topics for 2026, including succession planning, technology adoption, and community-focused brand-building strategies

30:50 Member business lending best practices, balancing risk appetite with proper credit administration and relationship focus

34:22 Introduction to CU Communities online learning platform and Synergy Consulting's strategic planning approach for 2026

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

💎 The difference between institutions that grow through organic growth versus acquisition is stark. Building from $100 million to $700 million organically through brand building, lending, and talent development creates operators with hard-won knowledge that acquisition strategies simply cannot replicate.

💎 Sophisticated board development is essential for protecting member capital, especially as free-market capitalist mentality enters cooperative banking. Volunteer boards need training to ask tough questions about CUSO investments, acquisition returns, and balance sheet strategy decisions.

💎 Credit union compliance and cross-functional education should be democratized and affordable. Understanding everything from BSA to interest rate risk creates well-rounded professionals capable of stronger financial institution leadership and strategic thinking.

ABOUT THE GUEST:

About Ancin Cooley: Synergy Credit Union Consulting - Website

CU Communities - Website

Ancin Cooley - Email

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Mark Ritter - Website

Mark Ritter - LinkedIn

History Lesson with Todd Harper and Mike Radway

SEO KEYWORDS:

Credit Union Conversations, Mark Ritter, MBFS, Credit Unions, CUSO, Credit Union Strategy, Cooperative Banking, Strategic Planning, Organic Growth, Member Business Lending, Financial Institution Leadership, Board Development, Enterprise Risk Management, Succession Planning, Brand Building, Synergy Credit Union, CU Communities, Ancin Cooley, financial institution leadership, Organic Growth, Acquisitions, interest rate risk

[00:00:29] There's nothing more that bores me than listening to a show that's a PowerPoint presentation for a pitch for somebody's business. Joining me today I'm excited about our conversation is Anson Cooley. Anson, how are you doing today? Hey,

[00:00:45] Mark Ritter: me. Thank you so much.

[00:01:05] Ancin Cooley: Absolutely. Let's do it. Let's do it. I appreciate you having me.

[00:01:21] Mark Ritter: Absolutely. And you've actually taken a similar path to me in terms of scrapping city and suburban life and moving out to the country, right?

[00:01:56] We're going through this whole journey from the city out to the country. [00:02:00]

[00:02:20] So yeah, there'd be a lot of animals that would appreciate my chickens and some other small fun things that the kids would love, but it's not in the cards

[00:02:40] I want them to eventually be able to come on the land with us as they age. And you were talking about just access to healthcare and being within that golden 30 minutes when you need help. And so those are some of the things that Post You May gave me some things to really consider. I enjoy

[00:03:03] I enjoy the air, I enjoy the peace, I enjoy the nature. But right now I have my refrigerator 'cause I buy my food from farms now and stock it up. Uh, but you know, I just don't run to the grocery store. Or run to the restaurant. And healthcare is probably, you know, the complex with all our doctors is about 35 minutes and my dentist is an hour away.

[00:03:38] Ancin Cooley: Exactly. We'll continue comparing notes as we grow in this

[00:03:53] Ancin Cooley: Alright. I'm originally from New Orleans, Louisiana. It's a happy Mardi Gras season to everybody out there. It's coming [00:04:00] early this year. I'm actually taking my family to Mardi Gras for their first full Mardi Gras situation this year. But I grew up in New Orleans, went to school here in Georgia, Morehouse College.

[00:04:30] Mark Ritter: I used to think my

[00:04:35] Me too. I just wanted to be that person. Interestingly enough, I, I graduated and there was an alumni chapter from my high school in Atlanta and there was a gentleman there that had been working for the OCC Office of Comptroller of Currency for about 20 years, and he asked me if I'd ever heard of the OCC and he said, listen.

[00:05:29] Banking, I would say where being an examiner is like grad school for financial institutions. I had an opportunity to do asset quality exams, interest rate, risk exams, liquidity. I would hold my nose a little bit and do compliance reviews and whatnot before I left. A lot of the institutions that we'd opened where.

[00:06:12] When I left there, I left to run banking practice at regional accounting firm where I did internal audits. Loan reviews, some strategic planning work. At this time, we were doing the transition from, remember when the allowance used to be 25, 50, 75, and so I was part of that transition into the 2006 guidance.

[00:07:06] Meaning somebody's charging the client two 50, $300 an hour, but I'm not seeing that. And so I looked around. I said to myself, what if I didn't charge people that amount? I charged them less, but I went out and I embarked on my own. In 2010, I started Synergy Bank Consulting initially with the thought of I was gonna do a lot of loan review work, a lot of internal audit work over time.

[00:07:57] Mark Ritter: when you look back at [00:08:00] those early days, and you said the boomers who were experienced bankers, and even you going into that in my early days in banking.

[00:08:46] You are this segment of the bank or the credit union, and it's really done a disservice to people as they age in their career.

[00:09:23] Negative convexity at a cost similar to what they pay for Netflix. I'm trying to democratize and lower the cost of getting a graduate school of education experience

[00:09:49] Who goes to that? The CEO, maybe another C-level person, a board member. And we haven't pushed down. Our educations may be as [00:10:00] much, and the networking and collaboration in the credit union. My first CEO boss, Bob Marquette at members first in Pennsylvania would always tell me, any credit union that wants to come in here, you share with them anything you can.

[00:10:27] Ancin Cooley: I appreciate that. I think specialization has its place, but I'll tell you, there's a person that recently became a CEO and when I first met her.

[00:11:05] For those listening, even if somebody wants to force you into a specialization, there are areas you should be dangerous in better than everybody else, but your ability to communicate your specialization in a way that helps an IT person appreciate you, a compliance officer appreciates you, is gonna depend on how much you understand.

[00:11:36] Mark Ritter: So let's talk a little bit of round robin some topics here. I'll throw it out there. You see a lot of credit unions. I see a lot of credit unions. You even deal a little bit deeper, more board sessions for the people who are doing well.

[00:12:05] Ancin Cooley: I can tell you how I've evolved. I used to be very prescriptive and biased in what I thought has to happen for things to work well at accrediting, and I've evolved over time.

[00:12:48] As long as they maintain that mix they can keep for employees and serve the small community, they started to serve. [00:13:00] I'm. Less interested in defining what success means for someone else on the other end? I think the institutions that are growing organically, they're better operators. I have a bias. If you start a credit union at a hundred million dollars and you get it from a hundred million dollars to $700 million.

[00:13:54] Associated with them that you're not gonna learn through [00:14:00] acquisition.

[00:14:19] Their mission is to serve their faith community. A, a very specific faith and they do a wonderful job. Much like there is an Amish credit union here in Pennsylvania that serves the Amish community and they do a wonderful job. They are successful in their mission and financially. You know, I sometimes wince a little bit more.

[00:15:11] Ancin Cooley: I agree a hundred percent. So for example, when we were emailing, I think that I agree with you more than you realize, but I've realized that me hand wringing at people about that isn't moving the needle either, you know? Things are gonna play out the way they're supposed to play out. And what I realized is, even in my communication on LinkedIn and in other spaces from my own personal brand standpoint, I saw myself becoming the anti-growth person.

[00:16:11] What's your return on your earnings? That acquisition of that bank that you purchased down in Florida? Three years ago, how well is that working out? Here's what frustrates me, mark. You wanna play banker games, but your board isn't sophisticated enough to hold you accountable in a way that. An owner of a bank would if you purchased the bank.

[00:17:00] A lot of those guardrails aren't there because it wasn't always a part of our cooperative culture.

[00:17:26] You were an executive at a super regional bank and you came to the credit union mindset. I've had people say that they can use the credit union culture to do the exact same thing that they did at the bank. I have been around long enough that I have seen that rise and fall very quickly. Just like yourself, what you said to me is critical for the board.

[00:18:11] Ancin Cooley: Absolutely. I think hopefully it is a through line in my community it things can happen on the spectrum, right? You can have the elder statesman, the emeritus person. That remembers the roots. A, a more shrewd, more sophisticated board member is willing to ask the tough questions. I made a post last night about the history of credit unions.

[00:18:52] I think sometimes you gotta call people back to the history so that we can remember the difference between a cooperative [00:19:00] and a bank. There's been some good things that have happened as bankers have and we, I think that. The cooperative movement and credit unions benefited from the bankers that came in post SNL.

[00:19:33] Mark Ritter: A few months back, I did a show with Todd Harper and Mike Radway. We did not talk about NCUA Board chaos. We talked about the law, HR 1151 from over 25 years ago, and what that meant and how it evolved. The cap on business lending. Caused a huge surge in business lending because it now codified the [00:20:00] industry to the good or the bad.

[00:20:23] Ancin Cooley: Yeah, I mean, I think once you introduce a pure free market capitalist mentality into a cooperative system.

[00:21:02] How do I get to that? And they'll figure out how to make things that, for example, that were may have been unconscionable to do. 30, 40 years ago, they'll move and influence things in their favor, just, just, just speaking lightly about it.

[00:21:29] Some of them call themselves a cusso. They'll be 1% credit union owned and 99% owned by a venture capital firm who are looking at that credit union capital and base like sharks surrounding a seal. That's where I get more concerned as a bigger risk because many of them are very sophisticated individuals who have succeeded often, but they've also failed many times over, and when they fail, [00:22:00] they're simply onto the next thing and not worried about the credit union that's left over.

[00:22:36] Some of the ways that people do that is they'll invest in a qso, but on the back end they're also invested personally in some of these things. And so a lot of wild stuff happens. I'll give you an example. I know there's one institution I was sitting. In a board meeting and they just passed over it. They had invested in a cusso and on the car report they, one [00:23:00] meeting they loaned the Cusso another million dollars.

[00:23:25] To start it, you gave them another million dollars and now we're just gonna write it all off and wipe our hands. There's places in other industries where you get fired for that stuff, mark. Absolutely. For me, I have to bridle my passion and my concern against the fact that it is what it is. Mark, we are allowing it.

[00:24:16] I think the way this continues to grow or falter will be how some of us. Find a balance. There's a way mark that you can feed the individual that wants to be the big time banker and buy thing be a $10 billion. And there's other way to keep the the heart of the movement. It's gonna be us finding that middle ground and forcing some of these conversations into open spaces.

[00:24:55] Mark Ritter: and, and I think, and I have had this grievance before, I think [00:25:00] our trade associations are deathly afraid to have honest debate and open conversations. About uncomfortable topics because they really like the sponsorship. They don't wanna offend sponsors who are trying to do that.

[00:25:40] What's going on in our space? What's going well? What are are the threats? What are the credit? How can we support credit unions? And I think sometimes those difficult conversations. The business side takes over from the trade associations where it's tough for them to take [00:26:00] on some of these topics because they're their customer, they're their client, they're their friends.

[00:26:30] We have a really big age leadership base. Me being one of 'em, we have technology. My kids are 21 and 23 years old. They don't wanna see a branch, they don't care. You have to be technology, you know, and deliver and build and, and also being part of your community, you know, being out there, building relationships.

[00:27:02] Ancin Cooley: focusing on or doing? So let me back up and give you an understanding of how we might approach our consulting practice. And I'm talking with leaders. I start with the numbers.

[00:27:43] I also love the book, the Four Disciplines of Execution. If I'm gonna do a strategic plan, I wanna see it executed. What I realized was that in a lot of ways, if I facilitated and I came back and nothing was done. We feel the way I said. So you know, about [00:28:00] three, four years ago, we started doing not just strategy, but how do we help credit unions actually do the strategy operationally.

[00:28:32] But some people, especially some of the C-F-O-C-E-O types, like the predictability of being able to manage a CD ladder, invest some, buy some indirect and do some participations. I used to be very anti that how I feel about it. You like it. I love it. Where we find our niche and the people that often seek us out are [00:29:00] CEOs that are coming behind a 20, 30 year CEO that's looking to change the staffing mix and engage in a different strategy.

[00:29:33] What I'm running into in my space, at least me. That people that seek us out are organizations that are trying to build a long-term sustainable strategic advantage that's built around brand identity, smart risk taking, and a mixture between organic and inorganic growth in both the consumer and [00:30:00] NBL space.

[00:30:02] Mark Ritter: So Anson, we could talk for another couple hours, maybe one day. So let's wrap it up and if you could tell people a little bit about your plans for CU community and also where people could connect with you if they want to talk a little bit more about your consulting services. Let's roll into some business lending talk.

[00:30:50] Ancin Cooley: I think whenever an organization is thinking about building out an MBL program, the first thing I ask is, what's your strategy and what do you want out of it? Is it a [00:31:00] part of a larger funding strategy? Some organizations would like to have business deposits. If you want business deposits, then maybe you want to build out an actual lending department with proper commercial lenders so they can acquire the whole relationship.

[00:31:49] You can do C-E-I-C-N-I, which is a bit more aggressive, requires. A different type of lender and a different type of underwriting apparatus [00:32:00] versus if you want to get into MBL lending and do pure dirt commercial real estate. Once we have a sense for that, then you can go into how you want to properly operationalize it.

[00:32:42] And so I guess if anything, one of the things I appreciate. Honestly about your firm, Marcus, that when I've engaged with your team, I always got that warm and fuzzy feeling that these folks get it. They understand the [00:33:00] production side, but also the credit administration and credit risk management side that goes along with it.

[00:33:23] Mark Ritter: my strategy is always balance. You have a balanced portfolio and focus on relationships.

[00:34:04] Ancin Cooley: A hundred percent. We're only on the same page with that.

[00:34:16] Ancin Cooley: Absolutely. Thank you for that. We're still in our soft launch phase. We're the CU communities.org.

[00:34:48] And that, and that's plural, correct? CU communities. Yeah. CU communities. Okay. Yep. On the, the consulting side. We're starting to take dates for strategic and operational planning for [00:35:00] 2026, for third and fourth quarter. Our weekends, all those football weekends fill up quickly. We handle credit unions of all shapes and sizes from.

[00:35:36] At SYN cuc.com a Cooley at s. YNCU c.com.

[00:36:01] So I had a great conversation today, Anson, thank you for joining me. I enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Alright, this is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union Conversations. Please subscribe and share the episodes. Thank you very much, and we hope to see you soon.