BankThink

We must reject the notion that the volunteer nature of many credit union directors absolves them of being held to the highest standards.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's broad and undefined powers promise to exact a high price on Main Street financial institutions.

I believe credit unions can — and will — meet their challenges successfully, either by focused effort or merely by being what they are: Cooperative institutions that are the best options for consumers of financial services. Here's what brings me to my sunny outlook ...

With the issuance of NCUA's Letter to Credit Unions (10-CU-03) on concentration risk, many credit unions are taking a long look at their overall risk-management processes.

Credit union executives today need a new model of leadership. Yesterday's autocratic and chain of command models don't fly anymore.

They'll come. They'll speak. And for many of them, they'll thank God they're not attached to a lie detector. And so it will go again this week as CUNA hosts its Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC) in Washington.

What if your board expenses were to end up on the front page of your local newspaper? That uncannily prescient question was asked by an NCUA examiner in an exam report that red-flagged the board perks at Hawaii State FCU in Honolulu.

Whatever a credit union's reasons for exploring a credit card portfolio sale and establishing an ongoing issuing partnership, thinking these elements through before you start is critical.

If adopted, a proposal from the Federal Trade Commission would no longer exempt credit unions from its Telemarketing Sales Rule.

American Banker's recent story about regulators planning enforcement actions (and likely fines) against the big mortgage servicers is the buzz of the blogosphere. Not all the buzz is all that friendly to us, though.