PayThink

Lots of credit unions make loans for housing. Not that many get involved in the housing that leads to a loan. Meriwest CU does.

Today there are more than a few CUs that are building Assets Under Management that exceed 50% of their traditional balance sheet deposits and have goals to equal and exceed what they consider an antiquated measure of wallet share.

As CUs increase their emphasis on growing their membership base and enhancing the member experience, self-service lobby engagement tools have become even more critical.

Unreasonably high taxes generate less, not more revenue for governments. Likewise, banks might make more money with lower fees, and become more compliant and less hated.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is scheduled Tuesday to consider whether banks with under $10 billion in assets will be exempt from Dodd-Frank requirements to conduct swap trades through clearinghouses.

The House Financial Services Committee is holding two Dodd-Frank related hearings next week as part of Republican members’ agenda to eventually repeal the legislation, according to The Hill’s Floor Action Blog. Sounds kind of a like a not-so-happy birthday celebration for the act, which was passed in July 2010.

PricewaterhouseCoopers failed to warn shareholders and the public about increased risk at Barclays. The auditor gave the British bank a clean report card on internal controls over financial reporting. We now know those controls were seriously deficient.

Even if we could trust megabanks to behave, there may be too much at stake to let systemically risky institutions live by self-imposed principles rather than hard and fast rules.

Nine of the largest, most complex financial institutions recently submitted living wills, plans required by Dodd-Frank detailing how they could unwind themselves facing a failure, to regulators.

There are legitimate reasons to want to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, we haven't stopped talking about the specious ones.