PayThink

With such a large turnover in Congress this is a great time for the bankers in America to reach out to their members and work with them to understand the challenges of banking today.

Which way do you prefer your roll of toilet paper to hang? You might wonder what that has to do with banking, but I bet you thought a few seconds about your preference. That's the genius behind a New York start-up called Hunch, which bills itself as a way to personalize the Internet by making smart recommendations about what you might like based on a series of questions.

If you're just trying to survive the assessments, scrape together some change-in-the-ashtray net income, and hang on until the economy and markets bounce back, you probably shouldn't pick up a copy of "13 Bankers" by James Kwak and Simon Johnson.

In a demanding, rapidly changing, competitive financial services environment, credit union managers are strapped for time, diminishing their opportunities to supervise lending staff or review credit applications.

It is an indisputable mathematical fact that compared to a credit union with an equal amount of net worth a mutual can make more loans, accept more deposits, open more branches, and hence, by these measures better serve members and the community.

If you haven't seen any of the numerous consumer surveys by now (or the credit union associations pointing them out) regarding how consumers and big bank customers prefer credit unions, you probably haven't heard of that faddish Internet thing, either.

What is extremely unfair to the FI is that this previously profitable accountholder will do what most do when they get mad at their bank or credit union: they will look for another institution that will treat them better.

During times of prosperity and plenty, everyone can be successful with relatively no effort. As we assess the changes being made seemingly every day-the most important thing we can do is go back to our roots, and remember what made our great movement and brought us where we are today.

NCUA figures show that the number of first mortgages grew by just 1.2% during the first six months of 2010. That's a staggeringly small growth rate considering today's historically low interest rates.

Loan participations offer the best of cooperative philosophy put into practice-sharing loan risks among borrowers while sharing the rewards. But they also offer challenges due to their complexity and increased regulatory scrutiny.