The news: Scott Simpson, the president of America’s Credit Unions, called an American Bankers Association (ABA) survey "deliberately deceptive" and said it casts credit unions unfairly. He’s not entirely off base: The study’s conclusions play a tiny part in an endless war between the banking and credit union industries over credit unions’ tax-exempt status and federal disclosure requirements.

According to the ABA survey, 64% of consumers “believe that credit unions should have the same disclosure and taxation requirements as other tax-exempt organizations,” and 68% said “credit union acquisitions of banks should receive the same level of regulatory scrutiny as bank mergers.”

Trendspotting: Credit unions are expanding by buying banks and other credit unions. The primary objectives in any credit union merger are likely to scale and diversify revenue sources. Two upcoming credit union acquisitions have made headlines:

• Community First Credit Union in Florida plans to acquire First Southern Bank in Georgia. The acquisition will create a credit union with $3.3 billion in assets and expand Community First’s branch footprint to northern Florida and southeast Georgia.
• BECU, headquartered in Washington State, and SAFE Credit Union, headquartered in California, are merging to create the fourth-largest US credit union, with $33 billion in assets. In comparison, the largest US credit union is Navy Federal, with $192 billion in assets.

Our take: The ABA survey was designed to prove a point: asking consumers about something few of them knew about and framing responses to favor the ABA policy position. But the threat to the banking industry is real: Credit unions may compete more effectively with banks because of a lower regulatory and tax burden than banks. The fight will intensify as credit unions get bigger.