ORLANDO, Fla. – A woman believed to be the head of a local ring that paid welfare recipients to establish accounts at area credit unions for a sophisticated kiting scheme was arrested last week.

WASHINGTON – Bank regulators shuttered seven more banks on Friday, including two more in hard-hit Florida and Georgia, and one each in Arizona, Illinois and Kansas.

WALL STREET – NCUA, which is in the process of liquidating U.S. Central FCU and WesCorp FCU, is expected to launch a second sale of legacy assets bonds, known as NCUA Guaranteed Notes, in the coming days.

WASHINGTON – CUNA disputed that its numerous ties with U.S. Central FCU amounted to control of the board of the one-time central bank for credit unions, which was liquidated Oct. 1.

WILKES BARRE, Penn. – Area credit unions are launching another major campaign in the final days of the election to turn out voters in hopes of saving their endangered congressional champion, Democrat Paul Kanjorski, as millions of dollars in campaign funds pour in from outside groups working to oust the 13-term House member.

GREENBELT, Md. – A Capitol Heights man was sentenced to four years in prison for illegally accessing and altering payroll accounts of U.S. servicemen and diverting thousand of dollars of pay meant for them to his accounts at Andrews FCU.

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – Greater Eastern CU has signed with Jack Henry & Associates to implement the company’s Cruise core processing platform by Symitar.

PHOENIX – Arizona State CU is giving $100 to everyone who opens a free checking account with direct deposit at the opening of its new branch in Tempe, which will qualify the new members for a 44,500 grand prize.

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Fast-growing Fort Campbell FCU has an 8,500 square-foot branch here, its third new branch since the beginning of 2009, and 10th branch overall.

HAVERHILL, Mass. – Northern Massachusetts Telephone Workers Community CU has signed a deal with Milan Lucic, left winger for the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins, to be its spokesman.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Park Community FCU said its executive vice president Jim Spradlin will become president and CEO of the $470 million credit union Jan. 1.

TUMWATER, Wash. – O Bee CU, the credit union for Olympia Brewing Co., announced the retirement of its CEO Bruce Cramer, who will be succeeded by James Collins, chief financial officer for the $136 million credit union.

TEMPE, Ariz. – TruWest CU has teamed up with Intuit Financial Services to offer text message-based mobile banking and FinanceWorks, an online financial management solution.

PAMPA, Texas – NCUA yesterday shut down Phil-Pet FCU and assigned the remnants of the failed $4 million credit union to Pantex FCU, a $215 million credit union in nearby Borger, Texas.

WASHINGTON – Long-term mortgage rates edged higher this week, after moving down to record lows the past four weeks.

WASHINGTON – Even as Fannie Mae is suing its insurers over coverage for the $140 million fraud at U.S. Mortgage/CU National Mortgage, credit unions victimized in the massive fraud are wondering whether those funds will be used to compensate them for their losses.

WALL STREET – Pent-up demand for new issuance made for strong investor demand for the newly issued NCUA Guaranteed Notes, a blend of $3.8 billion of bonds secured by the assets of U.S. Central FCU.

WASHINGTON – NAFCU said yesterday it was unsatisfied with a 28-page report detailing the failure of U.S. Central FCU and demanded a complete accounting of why the one-time $52 billion corporate failed, costing credit unions as much as $7 billion.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A new report on the failure of U.S. Central FCU concludes that NCUA examiners failed to adequately monitor the financials of the one-time $52 billion corporate credit union as it piled up increasing concentrations of risky private-label subprime mortgage-backed securities and so-called Alt-A paper.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The NCUA Board, struggling with growing losses on credit unions, cut back significantly on its 8-year-old deregulatory program known as Regulatory Flexibility, or Reg Flex.