PayThink

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.

We are allowing the retailer organizations to tell our story. How the heck do they know what it costs banks, credit unions, or the VISA and MasterCard networks to run these transactions?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will usher in a new era in regulation for credit unions. Fortunately, credit unions' core principles provide a solid foundation for addressing some of the CFPB's primary goals.

Five central strategies for measuring and improving the member lifetime value of our member bases, critical for enhancing our member-centric models in order to produce sustainable revenue and profitability.

Though its investigation into Morgan Keegan laid out extensive evidence that employees actively misled investors, the SEC's settlement signals the limits of current enforcement.

Quantitative Easing II comes to a close at the end of June. The Durbin amendment will take effect in late July. This is spectacularly bad timing.

It is five years since the 2006 peak of the great housing bubble and time to re-state the repetitive lessons of financial history.

At the height of the massive financial turmoil that rocked the United States in 2008 and 2009, some of us in the financial literacy movement recognized that what was unfolding was more than just an historic economic calamity; it was a national teachable moment.