PayThink

Lulz Security, the hacker group that has claimed credit for attacks on Sony Corp., Nintendo Co. Ltd. and other companies and law enforcement agencies, said it's had enough.

Sony Corp. may have left itself open to its massive data breach by laying off its security staff just before the attack, a class action alleges.

A former Citigroup Inc. accountant was charged this week with embezzling over $19 million from the New York banking company.

Next week, Sheila Bair will step down as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. She was a tireless player in the government's efforts to stabilize the banking industry, ensuring stability measures were made available to institutions of all sizes. In her final year in office, she has worked to ensure meaningful implementation of the provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act to provide a more stable and prosperous financial system, with a constant eye on the impact the regulation will have on the future of community banking.

Financial services providers are jockeying and collaborating with each other for the opportunity to serve an increasingly popular underserved market.

In support of its claim that foreign governments are not subject to the Bank Holding Company Act, the Fed has only a speech given decades ago by a former Fed Governor, John LaWare, and more recent testimony to Congress by the Board's current general counsel, Scott Alvarez.

I just don't understand the argument that it is more important for banks to be able to compete with equal capital levels in Shanghai than in Omaha — unless big banks care more about bringing jobs to China than small business loans to middle America.

One Big Picture Issue worthy of some discussion that will not be on the agenda at NAFCU's annual convention this week in San Francisco: how have those assessments and thin-as-a-shadow margins and still-dragging recession changed credit unions — for the worse?

With the recent — and somewhat lingering — recession causing many folks to ponder new ways to make money, some of them venture down the wrong path and take desperate measures like robbing, people, banks and credit unions. To mitigate this criminal activity, we researched and came up with five cost-effective ways for credit unions to help secure their branches from these violent crimes. Here are a few things we discovered that can be implemented for under $2,500.

If merchants want all the rights and privileges of consumer card usage, they should sit at the same table of responsibility the issuers do.