Debit Volume Drives 14% Increase For Visa's Q4
SAN FRANCISCO-Visa reported last week that fiscal fourth quarter net income surged 14% on the basis of a continued double-digit growth in debit. The card giant reported the dollar volume of debit transactions for its branded cards rose almost 18% for the quarter, while the volume grew by almost 14%.
Total card transactions rose 9% for the quarter, compared to last year's fourth quarter, to 13 billion. As a result, fourth quarter revenues rose almost 13%, to $2.4 billion, and fiscal year revenues surged 14% to $9.2 billion.
Report: TARP Exit Strategy
Needs To Be Developed
WASHINGTON-The Treasury Department needs to develop a clear exit strategy for hundreds of community banks still stuck in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), according to a government watchdog report released last week.
In contrast to the largest U.S. banks, which have repaid funds received from Tarp, 390 small and mid-sized banks remain stuck in the program. Nearly half of those banks are not paying the dividend or interest that they owe to the federal government, according to the report from the Special Inspector General for Tarp.
If banks remain in Tarp until late 2013 or beyond, the dividend rate that they owe the government is scheduled to rise from 5% to 9%, which could put greater pressure on their balance sheets. In certain cases, the Treasury Department has allowed participating banks to restructure the government's investment. Such deals often result in taxpayers taking a partial loss on their investments in order to avoid absorbing a larger hit. The watchdog report recommends that the Treasury Department develop criteria for determining whether and how much of a discount it will be willing to accept.
Former Alliant Exec Takes Wings As CEO
APPLE VALLEY, Minn.-Wings Financial CU, Minnesota's biggest credit union, last week became the latest credit union giant to look to Chicago's Alliant CU for a new chief executive, naming Frank Weidner, SVP-member services at Alliant, as president of the $3.2 billion credit union. The appointment follows an announcement one week earlier in which Rudy Pereira, chief of operations at the $8 billion Alliant CU, was named CEO of Wisconsin's Royal CU. Both Wings and Alliant share similar roots, with Wings being chartered to serve employees of Northwest Airlines and Alliant founded to serve employees of United Airlines.
Weidner will succeed Paul Parish, the current CEO at Wings who is retiring after leading the one-time Northwest Airlines Employees FCU over the past 20 years.
Security CU CEO, Terry Pierce, Is Retiring
FLINT, Mich.-Security Credit Union said its president and CEO, Terry Pierce, is retiring Nov. 1 after 33 years with the now $360-million credit union, the past 28 as CEO. Pierce took over when the credit union had just $67 million in assets and grew its membership to more than 58,000 from 31,000. Pierce's successor will be announced in early November.
Hospice Gets Boost From State Employees
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.-State Employees CU officials were on hand for the dedication of the Family House hospice, a $5.4 million project that was built with a $2 million grant from the SECU Foundation, the nation's largest credit union charity. The 45-room house on 8.8 acres is for families of adult patients who are undergoing medical treatment in Winston-Salem but who live outside Forsyth County.
CU Drops 'County Employees' From Name
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.-Jefferson County Employees CU has dropped the county employees from its name and now is known as Jefferson CU to reflect a broader field of membership. The $67-million credit union, chartered in 1941 to serve employees of Jefferson County, has been approved to serve approximately 600,000 residents of Jefferson, Shelby, Tuscaloosa, Walker, Blount, St. Clair or Bibb counties, as well as county employees and their families.
Foundation Awards 4 $20K Grants
HERNDON, Va.-Northwest FCU said its NWFCU Foundation has awarded $20,000 in grants to four Fairfax County public schools to be used for staff development and technological advances for classrooms. The grants were awarded to Dranesville and Louise Archer elementary and Rachel Carson Middle and Herndon High schools. The foundation has awarded $104,000 in grants to the four partner schools since 2005.
Assistant Manager Admits To Theft
EUGENE, Ore.-A former SELCO Community CU assistant branch manager admitted in federal court last week that she used her supervisory position to conceal her theft of $150,000 to support a gambling habit. Lenora Colburn, 49, worked for SELCO from 1986 to May 2011 in a variety of positions. She confessed that between 2003-11, she used her supervisory posts to "facilitate and conceal" her embezzlement using phony cash transactions and manipulating cash drawer and vault balances and branch audits. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 10.
Shooter Gets 25-Year Sentence
PITTSBURG-A man who shot a Westmoreland Community FCU teller during a January 2010 robbery has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars. The robber, David Mathis, 47, asked the judge for mercy and to consider the difficulty he had finding a job or a place to live in 2009 after serving 15 years in prison for a 1994 armed bank robbery. Mathis, who also pistol-whipped another teller during the hold-up, said he fired the gun accidentally and was only carrying it to scare the tellers. He was also ordered to pay $228,925 to Liberty Mutual for the workers' compensation the insurer paid to the teller as a result of the shooting.
Charges are still pending against the getaway car driver, Lamont Laprade, 35. The two men fled the credit union with $6,878 in a blue bag, which was later recovered from Laprade's SUV, after the two men abandoned it in a nearby cemetery.
