PayThink

Going into 2010, the top brand challenges for credit unions will be:

It’s not every day we at BankThink get to act as television critics, but today we’re taking our rare chance to give a PBS documentary two thumbs up.

Go to almost any hearing of the House Financial Services Committee or the Senate Banking Committee these days and the most you’ll hear about the problem of “too big to fail” is that it’s scary and needs to be fixed…somehow. Try to get into specifics, however, and you run into problems. Example: the testimony from two members of the Squam Lake Working Group on Financial Regulation before the Senate Banking Committee in May. The economists, Martin Baily and Raghuram Rajan, members of an elite group of scholars who gather to produce influential policy papers on financial regulation, laid out in their written statements the reasons why big banks were necessary and why regulators could not impose size limits them.

Is it a case of evolution or decay? The viewers of Oliver Stone’s forthcoming sequel to Wall Street will have to decide for themselves.

We’re firing up our Week Ahead post now that the August recess is over. It looks like Congress’ first week back won’t be entirely consumed with the healthcare reform debate after all: Hearings in the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee promise to revive discussion over regulatory restructuring and the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s financial rescue efforts.

When thinking about where the economy is heading, top Federal Reserve Board officials might look to the teachings of John Maynard Keynes, Adam Smith or Walter Bagehot. But Richard Fisher, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, apparently channels singer and actress Dolly Parton.

It was an interesting question you raised in Frank Diekmann's Aug. 17 editorial asking, "What if it were 2009, but with 1979's membership rules?" Frank and (CUNA Mutual's) Dave Colby, who contributed to the editorial, were right on the mark with the answer to that question. The current economic downturn and financial industry debacle, whose headlines have largely focused on the banking industry, would have had many more credit union casualties.

Due to unprecedented budget deficits state governments throughout the country are desperately seeking ways to cut costs wherever possible. States realize that many of their departments are paper intensive. One method they are employing to eliminate expense is replacing paper vehicle titles with paperless ones for lienholders such as credit unions in the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The strategic plan for 2010 may be the most important plan ever crafted by the credit union. On the one hand we have a great opportunity on the other hand we face high loan losses and high unemployment in our communities.

Each credit union has contracts with a significant number of vendors. In the process of executing a merger, each contract of at least the merging credit union must be reviewed to determine which relationships will continue unchanged, which will be allowed to expire at the end of their term, which will be terminated early, and which, if any, need to be amended to accommodate the additional credit union.