PayThink

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.

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.

S&P is placing greater emphasis on the country where a bank operates. We believe capital is at most neutral to a slight weakness for the ratings in the U.S. and Europe.

Addressing the home mortgage meltdown, Congressman Scott Garrett recently introduced legislation that is, as American Banker put it, "designed to draw the private sector back to the secondary-mortgage market after the troubled GSEs are terminated."

A card-skimming device is only convincing if it stays stuck to the ATM.

Shouldn't it be a given that an agency staffed with green examiners and tasked with enforcing new rules will communicate with banks before slapping them with regulatory orders?

A health-care organization that was in the process of encrypting its data let one computer get away – and put the personal data of 3.3 million patients at risk.

The federal government could avoid many unnecessary bank failures by making targeted preferred equity investments in community banks with a Camels 3 rating.