The Connecticut Mortgage Bankers Association must be feeling like they’ve just gotten backhanded by the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association.
The MMBA thinks the mortgage industry throughout New England would be better off if it was all centered in Boston. It’s been trying to sell that idea to the other five state mortgage banking associations in the region, but without much luck. Now it’s resorting to heavy-handed and unseemly tactics to get its way. In the process, rather than unifying the mortgage profession, it’s driving deep divisions between organizations that were once allies.
Last week, it summarily kicked the Connecticut group out of the New England Mortgage Bankers Conference, a tradeshow created 20 years ago jointly by all of the six state associations. For all of that time, the show was run on a handshake agreement — a measure of trust. But because Connecticut refused to knuckle under to the command that it merge with the Massachusetts association, it was ordered out of the show.
The MMBA first made its demand of the CMBA in June. It says it was clear in its contention that to be part of the New England conference, the Nutmeg State must agree to be part of a New England association.
Perhaps that’s just hard bargaining. But it turns out that Connecticut was the only state association to receive such an ultimatum. None of the other state groups have agreed to merge, and they are all still included as part of NEMBC. Indeed, Vermont and Maine have categorically turned down any merger idea, while Connecticut was at least willing to talk about it.
These are tough times for the mortgage industry, and even more so for mortgage trade associations. With scores of lenders out of business, with wholesalers drying up, with the real estate market at the bottom of a cliff, these associations have seen a dramatic drop in dues and other revenue. Just like any other company facing dramatic changes in its business, a trade association must do what’s necessary to secure its future.
Thus the idea of regionalization was born. Might it be a way to save money? Might it secure the future of organized mortgage industry representation?
What stands in the way of regionalization is that the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association has done an amazingly bad sales job of the idea. As presented to the other trade groups, the five other state associations would be dissolved. They would all be part of a new New England Mortgage Bankers Association, headquartered in Boston and run by a board of directors dominated by Massachusetts institutions. All the dues revenue would flow to Boston, and the staff and board in Boston would parcel it back out for services as it saw fit.
It’s not hard to see the skepticism of mortgage bankers in Montpelier or New Haven or Bangor that they wouldn’t be getting a whole lot of attention under such a scenario.
The MMBA hasn’t sold the value proposition of what real benefit would come from regionalization. Its action looks more like a desperate grab for cash. And its decision to arbitrarily jettison the second largest mortgage banking group in New England looks like hardball tactics to force the association to submit to its will. That can’t make the MMBA look like an attractive partner to the heads of any of the other state groups.
In an interview with Banker & Tradesman earlier this year regarding the regionalization effort, MMBA Executive Director Kevin Cuff made a telling statement. “This is a positive for the industry, and our association is reflecting what the industry is doing,” Cuff asserted. “We want to control the industry’s behavior, in its entirety.”
What Cuff meant then is certainly clearer now. But for an association that has historically stood for cooperation and professionalism, it’s sad to see it acting like a desperate thug. n
