PayThink

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) this week.

At NCUA's recent board meeting it was announced that the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund's (NCUSIF) equity ratio had reached 1.31%, and as a result no premium would be charged to credit unions in 2013.

IT spending is on the rise - and that's not a bad thing. While compliance has dominated financial institutions' IT budgets for the last several years, this year paints a rosier picture with credit unions making larger investments in online banking and mobility - thereby enhancing the customer experience and increasing competitiveness.

Get ready. The year-end lists are coming. Top-grossing films. Richest people. Greatest inventions of 2013.

Tougher restrictions on job duties, zero tolerance from senior management and compensation structured around long-term incentives, among other things, will prevent the wrong people ending up in banking for the wrong reasons.

Bank buyers should be taking notes about the problems with HealthCare.gov. A bad online integration of an acquisition could send new customers to the door, or worse: to Twitter.

Rather than simply continuing to absorb the losses from account takeover attacks, institutions should be reevaluating the effectiveness of their authentication methods and increase security to better prevent fraud.

The House Financial Services Committee passed six bills on Thursday that would change several aspects of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Tim Howard, dismissed with former CEO Franklin Raines in late 2004, claims in a new book, "The Mortgage Wars," that the GSE was quite healthy — but was the victim of vicious attacks by a banking lobbyist group and regulators.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a final rule on Wednesday that merged mortgage disclosure forms in an effort to help consumers better understand the total costs of a loan.