Credit unions

There are good, bad and ugly stories about how marijuana entrepreneurs deal with taxes and other financial management issues while having little access to banking services.

Preparing for the inevitable future credit crisis by setting aside more loss reserves is a step toward avoiding government bailouts.

The top leaders of the National Credit Union Administration said this week that they support an alternative option that would allow credit unions to merge some operations — a prospect that is alarming banking industry representatives.

Instead of focusing on the effect of swipe fee rules on banks and credit unions, retailers should ask why the Durbin amendment hasn’t produced the promised cost savings for their consumers.

Cornerstone Community Credit Union in Des Moines, Iowa, has partnered with the online marketplace lender LendingPoint to provide loan products for its members that struggle to qualify for traditional financing.

The NCUA's decision to expand member business lending has sparked a renewed effort by banks to press lawmakers to eliminate credit unions' tax-exempt status. The NCUA's board meeting also ended with awkward acrimony between two of its own members.

Not only does evidence point to small banks escaping interchange restrictions — as Congress intended — but there are also signs smaller institutions are gaining retail market share because of the exemption.

The NCUA's plan to expand credit unions' business-lending powers generated more than 3,000 comment letters, mostly from bankers urging a "no" vote. But the agency's board is expected to stick by its original proposal.

Home equity portfolios have shrunk at banks, but credit unions and nonbank lenders like loanDepot helped fuel the surge in home equity lines last year.

Bankers, irate with the NCUA's plan to expand field-of-membership for certain credit unions, are flooding the agency with comment letters. The NCUA has received 10,500 total letters, or more than triple the previous record for such responses.

By selling its community banking products to Fiserv, ACI has signaled it is no longer interested is no longer interested in that space. Fiserv, meanwhile, is beefing up its small-institution offerings.

Banking's top trade groups sent a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to intervene and stop a plan by the National Credit Union Administration to expand field of membership for federal credit unions.

The American Bankers Association has gone public with its issues with a plan to require banks to record loan-loss provisions when they originate a loan. Bankers are worried that the rule will eventually force smaller institutions to use costly modeling programs to comply.

Some lost their jobs while others made major missteps or faced serious challenges to their business plans. Here are the folks who had a rough 2015 and are looking forward to better times in 2016.