Corporate governance

KYLE, S.D. -- The first credit union on the Lakota, or Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation opened its doors for business Wednesday.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The NCUA Board is expected at next week’s meeting to approve two large community charters, one for Atlantic FCU in New Jersey and the other for The Focus FCU in Oklahoma.

WICHITA, Kan. – Pentagon FCU said its PenFed Realty has agreed to acquire Prudential Dinning-Beard Realtors, the fourth Prudential agency acquired in the past two years by the fast-growing credit union real estate subsidiary.

GLENDORA, Calif. – Members of America’s Christian CU and the local community will enjoy a white pre-Christmas again this year when the credit union sponsors 50 tons of snowfall as part of its seventh annual Snow Day event December 8.

DENHAM SPRINGS, La. – Members of Main Street Financial FCU voted yesterday to approve the merger of their $95 million credit union into Jefferson Financial CU, eleven months after they voted down the merger proposal.

DURHAM, N.C. – Self-Help FCU, which agreed earlier this month to buy 1,100 mortgages originated by the Second Federal Savings and Loan, said yesterday it is also buying the deposits and remaining banking operations of the failed bank.

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Two small businessmen won a $25,000 grant through Michigan State University FCU’s startUP Challenge to help get their new business off the ground.

WOODBURY, Minn. – Postal CU is awarding $1,000 a week this holiday season in cash prizes for members who use their debit cards.

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – Merrimack Valley FCU will acquire a branch here when it merges $7 million Merrimack College FCU.

DETROIT, Mich. – Detroit Metropolitan CU has picked up a branch in nearby Clawson with the merger of one-time $34 million Clawson Community CU.

DENVER – Bellco CU will have its name replace Wells Fargo atop the Colorado Convention Center’s theatre under a five-year sponsorship deal to be announced Thursday.

APPLETON, Wis. – NCUA has approved a credit union charter for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a $480 million bank that used to be a credit union which will now be known as Thrivent FCU.

Every credit union wants to be a consumer’s primary financial institution. But Neil Goldman said winning the PFI race requires a reality check, because many consumers do not have great views of credit unions.

United Labor CU here has seen its lending increase by 10% since it began offering financial education courses for union members 18 months ago, a move that has earned it a “Best Practice” Award from Credit Union Journal.

Lots of businesses put up lights around the Christmas holidays. Then there’s Streator Onized CU, which has found a way to really draw attention to itself.

It wasn’t all that long ago that San Francisco FCU’s planning horizon did not extend beyond one year. The one thing it could see in front of it, however, was that it was losing members.

Pinal County FCU has turned around two negatives familiar to many CUs–lack of quality member feedback and low cross-sales ratios–and made them positives with a signature pad.

Since implementation of what it termed “aggressive” fraud mitigation strategies, $3.3-billion Mountain America Credit Union has reduced hard-dollar fraud losses while more at-risk dollars in fraudulently accessed accounts were protected.

What began as an ATM cleaning and maintenance operation at CFE FCU has evolved into a compliance and loss-prevention strategy that has earned the CU a Best Practices Award from Credit Union Journal.

One small CU here has effectively used shared branching to make it more competitive in a marketplace where size certainly counts.