AUSTIN, Texas – A+ FCU said its A+ Education Foundation has awarded more than $61,000 to 62 grant recipients under its Educator Grant Program.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – A woman who drove a shuttle bus for Mobility Transportation apparently had a busy lunchtime agenda: spending her breaks robbing two banks and one credit union, according to police.

OXNARD, Calif. – Officials with Pacific Oaks FCU and the owners of the Carriage Square shopping center have hammered out an agreement to allow the credit union branch to stay at the center, averting an eminent domain takeover of the branch by the city.

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. – PHH Corp., operator of the biggest mortgage bank for credit unions, reported yesterday its second quarter losses increased to $133 million, as mortgage rates fell to their lowest in five decades.

PURCHASE, N.Y. – MasterCard reported a 31% surge in second quarter profits yesterday, fueled by an increase in international transactions, price increases and cost cutting.

HARRISBURG, Penn. – Mid-Atlantic Corporate FCU announced that Jim Burns, chief financial officer since 1992, is retiring at the end of August.

WOODBRIDGE, Va. – Belvoir FCU has introduced a CUSO that will offer regulatory compliance assistance to other credit unions.

GREENBELT, Md. – A former loan supervisor for Education Systems Employees FCU was sentenced this week to 51 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution for embezzling $219,000 from the credit union through an identity theft scheme.

WASHINGTON – Frustrated with congressional inaction, NAFCU asked the White House to intervene with lawmakers to get the long-sought increase on member business loans added to the pending jobs bill.

CHARLESTON, W.VA. — A former executive at N&W Poca Division FCU and her cousin were charged by a federal grand jury yesterday with embezzling $2.4 million for the one-time $7 million credit union in nearby Bluefield that went under in 2008.

OREM, Utah – NCUA said it has hired Ken Chapman, a well-known manager of troubled credit unions, to head the conservatorship of Family First FCU, a one-time $173 million credit union taken over on July 30.

DETROIT – A 37-year-old Detroit man faces a possible death penalty after a federal jury convicted him yesterday of killing an armored truck guard during a 2001 robbery of $204,000 at Dearborn FCU, now known as DFCU Financial.

ADDISON, Texas – Kappa Alpha PSI FCU, a six-year-old fraternity-based credit union that never reached $1 million in assets, was closed down by NCUA this afternoon, the 20th credit union failure of the year and the second already this week.

NORTHFIELD, Minn. – ID Insight announced yesterday it awarded a patent for its innovative method of identifying differences in addresses to help banks and other financial institutions detect and prevent identify theft.

CLEARWATER, Fla. – Card Services For Credit Unions announced yesterday it has agreed to offer it credit union members a mobile banking option through MShift.

HOUSTON – Cardtronics, the biggest provider of ATMs in the country, said yesterday it has signed with Kroger Co. to manage 800 ATMs on the company’s supermarkets.

MARSHALL, Mich. – Marshall Community CU has named Heather Luciani, its chief operations officer, the new president and CEO of the $150 million credit union.

SAN ANTONIO – Security Service FCU has joined CO-OP Financial Services, offering its 760,000 members surcharge-free access to 28,000 ATMs nationwide, 9,000 of which are deposit-taking.

LOCKPORT, N.Y. – Cornerstone Community FCU, the largest credit union based in Western New York, has introduced a mobile banking service.

TAMPA, Fla. – USF FCU yesterday announced the hiring of Richard Skaggs, the CEO at Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Central Florida, as new president and CEO of the $345 million credit union.