Ed Roberts

Landmark Credit Union may buy Hartford Savings Bank in Wisconsin, the National Credit Union Administration board decided Thursday.

A region-wide department chain filed suit against Visa challenging the payment card industry standards under which the merchant was fined $13 million for a 2010 data breach.

The Federal Reserve issued a report saying that even though card issuers reported lower interchange revenues from debit card transactions in 2012 it has no plans to change the rules governing Durbin amendment's cap on swipe fees, as the rules gave it the power to do.

Lawyers for St. Helen's Community FCU urged a federal court here to dismiss a suit challenging last September's unsuccessful board ouster vote, claiming the federal court has no legal jurisdiction over federal credit union bylaws designed by NCUA.

Members of HarborOne CU are mailing in their votes to determine whether the second largest credit union in Massachusetts will convert to a mutual savings bank.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, whose nomination is being held up in the Senate, told attendees to CUNA's Government Affairs Conference this morning that credit unions are not the target of the new consumer cop on the block and he asked for their help in selling the fledgling agency to the public.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, widely credited with creating the idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, ripped her new Republican colleagues in the Senate during CUNA's Government Affairs Conference last week for their continued efforts to block a vote on the new agency's director until they get a deal to change the structure of the fledgling consumer agency.

NCUA last week announced an initiative with state regulators and the National Association of State CU Supervisors (NASCUS) aimed at easing the way for state charters to qualify as low-income credit unions, which exempts credit unions from the cap on member business loans and allows them to raise supplementary capital.

With more than 4,000 people expected here this week for CUNA's Governmental Affairs Conference, the lobbying will begin once again for two long-time priorities for credit unions that have been reintroduced in the new Congress.

A longtime member of St. Helen's Community FCU filed suit against the $160-million credit union last week, claiming the incumbent board and management rigged last year's vote to recall a majority of the board.

Membership growth slowed in December from its record pace, but not until credit unions across the nation added a near all-time best of about 2.4 million members for 2012, according to preliminary estimates by CUNA.

Last year's merger of Southeast Corporate FCU into Corporate One FCU, creating one of four major surviving national corporate credit unions, was accomplished with up to $15 million of financial assistance from NCUA to help make up for potential shortfalls due to troubled Southeast investments.

Republican senators have filed a bill that would block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from enforcing or implementing a host of new mortgage and credit card regulations until a new director is confirmed by the Senate-intensifying the chess game over the fledgling consumer agency.

State Employees CU, one of just three credit unions restricted by enactment of the Durbin amendment, said the provision limiting fees on debit transactions cost it about $40 million in lost revenue in 2012.

Credit unions are riding a crest of improving asset quality, and the resulting decline in loan loss reserves is helping to produce record net income for 2012, another sign of the improving economy.

Outside investors in The Cleveland International Fund are questioning the authority of E. Eddy Zai, the local financier who owns controlling interest in the business fund, to assign $21 million in projected monthly payments on four major downtown properties to pay restitution to NCUA for his role in the massive fraud at St. Paul Croatian FCU.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau set new rules last week that will require credit unions, banks and other mortgage lenders determine a borrower's ability to repay their loans.

Members of OMNI Community Credit Union will again pick up their year-end Cashback Rebate, bringing the program's five-year total to $4 million.

CUNA and its affiliated state leagues last week, faced once again with defeat of legislation that would expand CUs' member business lending authority, were calling on Senators to also kill the TAG bill that bankers have been pushing for.

A state court yesterday approved a request from the South Carolina Revenue Department to notify credit unions and banks of the 3.3 million bank account numbers compromised when someone hacked department tax files.