VANCOUVER, Wash. - (09/16/04) -- Three Columbia CU directors whonarrowly survived a recall vote last April after the board's failedattempt to convert Columbia to a mutual savings bank, and one otherincumbent, were overwhelmingly defeated for reelection duringWednesday night's annual meeting here, the first board electionsheld by the credit union in 25 years. Dissident members of thecredit union who organized the recall effort won the four seatsinstead, as well as three of the five seats on the credit union'ssupervisory committee, giving the group, Save Columbia CU, astrategic foothold towards their efforts to hold the boardaccountable for the failed conversion attempt. "I think the membershave spoken. They threw every one of their candidates out and votedevery one of ours in," Steve Straub, one of the leaders of SaveColumbia CU who won election to the board, told The Credit UnionJournal last night. Straub, who once ran Columbia CU as its CEO,said his group will field more candidates for next year's electionfor three board seats in its efforts to gain control of thenine-member board. He attributed his group's success to theircommitment to continue Columbia as a credit union and to focus onserving the members.
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Synovus Financial demonstrated at an industry conference how it is using Microsoft's Copilot to help its staff address customers' concerns.
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The U.S. arm of Spanish banking giant Santander has hired Swati Bhatia to oversee retail banking and its digital transformation efforts. Bhatia joins at "an inflection point" for the company, which aims to be "a digital bank with branches," CEO Tim Wennes said.
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Mariya Rosberg is named Americas head of banking and financial services at Marsh McLennan's Oliver Wyman unit; startup ZayZoon raised $15 million in a new funding round; and more in the weekly banking news roundup.
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Once a prominent figure spurring financial institutions to engage in cryptocurrency, Bankman-Fried's downslide began with the collapse of the digital asset exchange FTX in late 2022 and hit rock bottom with his sentencing to 25 years in prison.
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But the 30-year fixed rate mortgage is still near 7%, and that remains the overhang on the housing market, Freddie Mac said.
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