The average tenure of a credit union board director fell from 10.72 years in 2004 to 9.81 years in 2012, a recent paper by a trio of Melbourne academics has shown.With a paper focussed on the themes of board performance more than demographics, Kamran Ahmed, Paul Mather and Luisa Unda readily round this number up to ten years and label it "stable".And ten years is too long, they suggest, saying the statistics imply "that the lack of board renewal is still a common characteristic for credit-union boards." "An important characteristic of the Australian credit-union sector is the hybrid nature of the not-for-profit and for-profit structures," the trio wrote. "For example, while a credit union's main objective is to maximise members' benefits (as opposed to making a profit for the organisation), profit is required to ensure the credit union is able to grow to meet capital requirements and remain competitive in the financial market."Of more note, though, is that these shorter-serving directors are getting paid more consistently.Ninety-two per cent of credit union directors are on a stipend, or were in 2012. In 2004 the ratio was 83 per cent.The paper points to this as one oddity of Australian credit unions: "A distinctive feature of the boards of Australian credit unions is that the majority of them are not run by volunteer or unpaid directors, as are other credit-union industries worldwide. "In most cases, a remuneration fee is paid subject to members' approval at the annual general meeting. Credit unions must establish a remuneration policy that outlines the objectives and structure of remuneration arrangements for key management personnel, as mandated by APRA."Democratic control of the election of the boards of directors of mutual ADIs may be no brake on governance quality. Indeed it correlates with superior financial outcomes, mainly at scale, the Melbourne academics have shown.The impact of board characteristics on financial performance in Australia's "developed credit-union movement" is the theme of the paper.They find that board remuneration, board expertise, and attendance at board meetings have significantly positive effects on credit-union performance and asset quality. "We also find that financial performance tends to improve with larger boards, but tends to weaken with a higher proportion of board members holding additional directorships."They said these relationships "hold after we control for alternative measures of performance, credit-union characteristics and the endogeneity problem."