BankThink

There was a hard lesson learned by many in the Occupy movement last week. When you push the so-called "establishment," they push back… with a vengeance. It was an "Iron Heel," response, with billy clubs in the ribs, pepper spray in the face and a general disregard of the right to peacefully protest.

MSNBC has unearthed a leaked memo from a Washington lobbying firm proposing to the American Bankers Association that it develop a "response" to Occupy Wall Street costing $850,000.

Amazon.com Inc.'s new high-end e-reader, the Kindle Fire, has a lot of features that could let it substitute for a portable computer or tablet — but is lacking in at least one regard: Payment security.

As one of the country's leading providers of mystery shopping services to credit unions, I'd like to refute several misrepresentations contained in a report comparing phone satisfaction surveys to mystery shopping.

There is one universal truth when it comes to social media, and conveniently, it can be expressed in fewer than 140 characters: Everyone thinks everyone else has it figured out.

Congratulations to Stan Hollen and Company at CO-OP Financial Services for understanding that credit unions actually do compete with banks for the hearts and minds of Americans.

Thank you to Frank J. Diekmann for jumping up and down and hitting us member credit unions over the head on charter conversions to mutual savings bank charters. This is not about the affairs of other credit unions. It is about the integrity of the credit union name.

It's an involved decision process, but now that you're ready to choose a technology solution for your credit union, the process is over. Or is it? Here are five factors to consider.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...R.I.P. Theodore Forstmann: The pioneer of leveraged buyouts died Sunday at 71. Forstmann was credited with coining the term "barbarians at the gate" to describe takeover artists like himself, inspiring the title of the 1990 bestseller about the buyout of RJR Nabisco (a deal that he lost to KKR). In addition to its obituary for the founder of Forstmann, Little, the Times' "Dealbook" also has a compilation of remembrances about him from prominent figures including Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger.

The word 'password' has topped SplashData's annual list of the 25 most common passwords — and a common password is, from a security perspective, a terrible password.