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During NAFCU's State of the Industry event Thursday, NAFCU Chief Economist and Vice President of Research Curt Long shared the results of the pre-conference survey ahead of a panel of industry-leading economists for a full overview of lending, consumer spending, and other critical indicators.

Survey respondents answered questions about loan demand, share growth, earnings and more.

In addition, the survey tackled credit unions' experiences with teleworking during the pre and post pandemic period. While a large percentage of credit unions reported positive plans to adopt permanent telework and more flexibility. Credit unions also reported that they are focused on overall employee satisfaction and employee preferences for non-branch staff.

This suggests, Long noted, that there are changes in telework "to sum up, we see a spectrum across the remote work plans and that's a good thing, no two credit unions are the same."

Following the review of the survey results, Long was joined by Fred Eisel chief investment officer of Vizo Financial Corporate Credit Union and Scott Knapp chief market strategist of CUNA Mutual Group.

Long kicked off the panel to discuss a full overview of the current and future economic effects of COVID-19.

"The probability of inflation spiking and becoming a true problem is low," Long said when discussing the concern of inflation. However, he noted, "that does not mean there are no downside risks to the economy right now."

Following Long's presentation, Eisel examined asset purchasing, Fed rates, inflation, technology investments and credit union trends.

"In 2022, invest a lot more in technology. Members were forced to utilize a lot of the technology that credit unions had to offer, because they didn't go into the branches." Eisel said "Even older members that love coming into branches were forced to use technology for the first time, have embraced it."

In addition, Eisel discussed how credit unions may have to prepare for higher assets then typical.

Knapp wrapped up the session with how the market reacted amid the pandemic and with an economic look ahead.

Knapp highlighted the importance of these unprecedented times for economic forecasting and indicators. "Forecasting based on economic models should be taken with a grain of salt. This is going to be tough to figure out because of how unusual the situation is. We're not subject to the standard business cycle influences in financial markets or otherwise."

In addition, Knapp discussed economic outcomes. "Our base case is a reversion to the mean," he said. Knapp also noted there is a very low chance of an alternative scenario base case where there is a COVID acceleration that would put the economy back on its heels.

The panel joined a lineup of NAFCU's award-winning staff and other industry experts to equip industry leaders with data, trends, and key takeaways that are necessary to plan for the future during NAFCU's State of the Industry – a complimentary virtual event with the support of signature sponsor Mastercard.