PayThink

If you find yourself in an Irish pub this summer-and by that I mean the authentic public houses with the history embedded in the mist of the Emerald Isle and not the franchise at your local mall-I wouldn't suggest complaining to the local lads about the tough year you've had in America's credit unions.

Data has become an essential raw material for American business, almost on a par with capital and labor. The reality is that financial institutions have more information on their customers/members than any other industry. This data wealth is a tremendous advantage for those organizations that use and analyze information wisely.

Perhaps all those privately insured credit unions would like to pay back to NCUA the windfall insurance benefit they received when the corporates failed. Seems to me that they were only entitled to the $250,000 insured balance NCUA had in place.

The good news is there is a silver bullet for creating a competitive brand. The bad news is that the silver bullet is discipline, which requires consistent, focused, hard work every day.

Someone forgot to tell Susan Chapman, vice president of marketing strategy for Smart Financial CU in Houston, that there is a recession going on. A sharp focus on the consumer relationship market this year generated more loan activity for Smart Financial and led to a budget increase in 2011 for her marketing department. "If I can go to our board committee and say for every dollar spent we're bringing back $10, or whatever it is, I can get an OK to spend more money," Chapman said.

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The Jan. 26 "Editor at Large" column on regulation of community banks, "Time for a Separate Regulatory Tier for Small Banks," struck a nerve with a variety of readers.

While the market downturn of the past three years has had an impact on mortgage lenders of all sizes, it has also provided an opportunity for many credit unions to emphasize the difference between their level of service and that perceived of the larger, national firms.

It remains to be seen whether the historical superiority of credit unions will hold up in the current environment. Early indications suggest it may persist, but the jury is still out.

Faced with the many challenges this crisis brings, how will the industry regain momentum and prosper? Innovations in processing payments may be the answer.