ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Pentagon FCU’s PenFed Foundation has donated $7,000 worth of touch-screen computers to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Countryside FCU has signed with Share One to implement the company’s NewSolutions from Share One as its new data processing solution.

LOS ANGELES – Matadors Community CU signed with CampusDoor to offer the company’s CU Student HELP Smart Option Student Loan through Sallie Mae.

BATON ROUGE, La. – E FCU yesterday named Tyler Grodi, the chief financial officer at $875 million Black Hills FCU in Rapid City, S.D., as president and CEO of the $250 million credit union.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA unveiled a new consumer tool aimed at expanding the federal agency’s outreach to consumers as part of National Consumer Protection Week.

CLEVELAND – Several credit unions with deposits at St. Paul Croatian FCU are counting their losses from last year’s fraud-related failure of the one-time $240 million credit union.

WASHINGTON – With the credit union movement showing little appetite to punish or banish executives responsible for the crash of the corporate system, there is a high likelihood that many of the same people involved in one or more corporate failures will have a prominent future in the future of the corporate network.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Public Interest Group, the leading consumer lobby in Congress, called on the Fed to maintain course and reduce fees on debit transactions while opening the cards market to greater competition.

MAPLE GROVE, Minn. – TopLine FCU has agreed to acquire troubled Como Northtown Community CU in the latest merger remaking the credit union market in the Twin Cities, the two credit unions announced this afternoon. Como Northtown Community is a one-time $41 million credit union that had losses of $1.2 million for 2009 and $1 million for 2010, depleting its net worth to just 2.4% at year-end. The $270 million TopLine itself had a $275,000 loss for each of the past two years, due to NCUA assessments, but has strong capital of 10.5%. The merger is expected to become effective on April 1, 2011. Signage changes will be made shortly thereafter with the full conversion being completed later this year. The Twin Cities twinning follows recent combinations of Affinity Plus CU with troubled Northtown Community CU, and of Wings Financial CU with two ailing credit unions, Highgrove Community FCU and City & County CU.MAPLE GROVE, Minn. – TopLine FCU has agreed to acquire troubled Como Northtown Community CU in the latest merger remaking the credit union market in the Twin Cities, the two credit unions announced this afternoon.

WASHINGTON – A bipartisan group of Senators is planning to introduce a bill as soon as next week that would delay implementation of the controversial Federal Reserve rule to cap fees on debit transactions for two years while the Fed studies the issue. But the Senate bill, which is expected to be matched by a similar measure being introduced in the House, faces rough sledding because it would need 60 votes to overcome an expected filibuster by Sen. Richard Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who crafted the interchange language. The bill is being drafted by two members of the Senate Banking Committee, Democrat Jon Tester of Montana and Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee, Capitol Hill sources confirmed for the Credit Union Journal this morning. The legislative action comes as the clock is running down on the interchange proposal, required as part of last year’s Wall Street reform bill, giving the Fed until April 21 to enact a final rule, which would take effect by July 21. The stakes are huge as some $20 billion a year in interchange fees accrues to credit unions and banks, with credit union earning an estimated $2.6 billion last year.

ELKRIDGE, Md. – CRI Solutions, Inc., has signed a multi-year agreement to renew its strategic partnership with Insurance Systems Incorporated (ISI).

SAN DIEGO – A cross-dressing bank robber dubbed the “Tootsie Bandit” because he wore a wig, sunglasses and makeup while holding up an Inland FCU branch in El Cajon last July, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to robbery and attempted robbery charges.

MINNEAPOLIS – The former IT manager at St. Paul Employees Postal CU was sentenced yesterday to more than a year in prison for scheming to cheat computer parts maker Cisco Systems out of almost $400,000 by selling the company computer parts he falsely obtained from the credit union.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – PSCU Financial Services said yesterday it has joined NCR and First Data Corp. to offer ATM hardware purchase, leasing options and maintenance services to its 1,500 credit unions.

SAN DIEGO – Mitek Systems, which makes a popular mobile banking solution, has rolled out an application for mobile payments companies which it says offers consumers a convenient way to enroll their checking accounts.

ELLICOTT CITY, Md. – HCTA FCU said Janet Oursler, who has served as interim CEO after the illness of longtime President Lorraine Malinowski, now is permanent head of the $17 million credit union.

BOSTON – Industrial CU said it signed with COCC to implement the company’s INSIGHT core processing system.

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Addison Avenue FCU said it is using an online security system provided by Websense to protect its systems from malware, viruses, spam and other threats that may be picked up from social media sites.

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers Tuesday night again introduced a bill to raise the member business lending limit for credit unions, for at least the fifth Congress in a row.

NEWARK, N.J. – Mortgage fraudster Michael McGrath, who siphoned almost $140 million of credit union funds through his U.S. Mortgage Corp. and its CU National Mortgage subsidiary, will serve at least 12 years of a 14-year prison term meted out by a federal judge two weeks ago, according to prosecutors.