Credit unions

GREENSBORO, N.C. - As is the case with several other corporate CUs, First Carolina Corporate Credit Union has seen a rise of nearly 54% in term and structured certificates over the past year after an extended period of low liquidity.

MIDDLETOWN, Penn. - Natural-person credit unions appear to agree with Wall Street that the Fed will not be making any changes to the Federal Funds rate this year and as a result have been not only pouring deposits into corporate CUs but moving out of overnights and into longer-term investments.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - If conversions to bank charters, a seemingly endless parade of mergers and even the first "hostile takeover" attempt by one credit union over another have shaken faith in the cooperative nature of the credit union movement, the corporate credit union network offers a preview of how cooperation can survive a shakeup in the landscape.

SANTA ROSA, Calif.–Redwood CU and First Napa FCU have completed their merger, with RCU as the surviving institution serving 135,000 members and assets exceeding $1.5 billion. “We are pleased to welcome the Members of First Napa Federal Credit Union to our membership, and look forward to the opportunity to offer expanded financial services to these new Members, as well as to the entire Napa community,” said RCU’s CEO Brett Martinez. All former FNFCU employees were retained on staff of the merged institution.

Solutions For Every Scenario

Credit unions are generally overcapitalized and need to leverage their capital to grow and gain market share, according to one expert.

Having served as the linchpin for the bond market for the last 20 years, the Nonfarm Payroll report released last month was a shocker, according to Dwight Johnston, VP of economic research at Wescorp.

Business and technology must achieve harmony in an organization, according to CUNA Mutual's Rick Roy, senior vie president, Customer Operations and Chief Information Officer Tom Gosnell, who addressed an audience of more than 100 senior insurance executives and chief information officers from across the country here for the Insurance & Technology's 8th Annual Executive Summit.

First Carolina Corporate Credit Union and VACORP Federal Credit Union co-sponsored the first annual Payment Systems Conference that sought to provide CU industry payment experts with timely updates and new technology.

Credit unions are looking at the plateau in interest rates and wondering-as are their members-is it time to cash out?

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Mid-Atlantic Corporate FCU said it has installed Green Armor Solutions’ Identity Cues multi-factor authentication system for online log-on. The first time a user logs on with their user name and password, the server will send an email with an ID to plug into the web page, which will validate the user. Green Armor will associate users with the computer they are on by doing an analysis of the online session, examining particulars to each user’s machine. The multi-factor authentication will be used for wire transfer, automatic clearinghouse and other services provided by the $2 billion corporate.

WALLINGFORD, Ct. – Constitution Corporate FCU said yesterday it will lease electronic image equipment to credit unions that don’t want to buy their own. The $2 billion corporate said its ImageXchange, a component of its Check-21 product suite, scans, endorses, encodes and performs automatic balancing of all items, enhancing the entire process. Constitution is one of the few corporates in the country with the ability to send, receive and return images of its members’ checks directly through the Federal Reserve, having been certified under the FedForward, FedReturn and FedReceipt programs.

The pressure on margins is refocusing attention on an oft-overlooked aspect of credit union operations: cash management.