David Willis has done a significant amount of research for his PhD thesis, Impact of Regulatory Evolution upon the Australian Credit Union Sector.

According to the abstract:

The thesis investigates four major objectives or themes. These are analyzed from both a qualitative and quantitative view point so gaining a richer understanding of the credit union sector through the period and how regulation has changed and evolved. The first objective looks at how the credit union sector perceive themselves and then measures how they actually act, so looking for any contradictions in the traditional ideals of what it is to be a credit union and what actually the sector looks like. This is then contrasted with what the literature says in this area. The second objective is to measure and assess the changing and evolving compliance and regulatory environment that is applied to the credit union sector and to use the theory of regulatory evolution in this process of assessment. The third objective is to measure the behavioral changes and attitudes of credit unions and its strategic focus given the both the changing nature of the sector and the evolutionary nature of regulation. Finally, the fourth objective is to investigate the dynamic relationship between the credit union sector and regulations through the application of regulatory dialectic and typology theory.

The thesis was funded by APRA.

Willis argues that the main problems facing the credit union sector are regulatory compliance and constrained capital bases.

The thesis describes the practical implications of the research for both regulators and credit unions. As it was written before the current global financial crisis and the introduction of the deposit guarantee scheme, there may be a postscript.