PayThink

Real-time personal marketing might seem like fiction, but it's becoming a reality as the mass customization movement picks up steam.

With the issuance of NCUA's Letter to Credit Unions on concentration risk, many credit unions are taking a long look at their overall risk-management processes.

Two-tiers, ATM exemptions, unbundling value-added services, Fed neutrality, Congressional ambivalence, Odd-Fellow lawsuits, and a host of Chickens Little squawking about their piece of the sky falling on everyone's head. Does anyone wonder why this Great Interchange Debate is so confusing?

From the What Goes Around Comes Around Department: In case you missed it, there was an interesting insight shared in the Feb. 28 issue by Steve Goldberg, exeutive director of the CUNA Mutual Foundation.

In response to Edwin Mierzwinski of U.S. Public Interest Group and his statement that the Durbin Amendment will have a beneficial impact on consumers, what this gentleman does not understand fully is that credit unions in general have not raised other fees in many years, and that we live on a much smaller income than the giant credit card issuers.

The ability to successfully implement a multi-channel marketing communication strategy will most likely be the single biggest challenge-and opportunity-for credit unions over the next few years.

Har-Co, which last month announced plans to convert to a bank, was founded in 1955 to serve school employees in Harford County, Maryland. Here's hoping that for them the lesson won't come after the test.

It seems to me that when someone agrees to do a job for a certain salary, the rewards for doing the job well are that the person is paid and he gets to keep the job.

A merger is like most financial decisions, especially if valuations resemble Three-Card Monte; when they do, emotions tend to play a much larger role than most of us would like to acknowledge.

What if we created solutions that members would want to adopt and use, instead of more hoops for them to jump through?