WASHINGTON – House and Senate leaders agreed last night to rewrite a newly-approved portion of the bank bill to win over the votes of three critical Senate Republicans who are wavering in their support, jeopardizing the massive bill.

The leaders agreed to reconsider a $19 billion assessment on banks they stuck in the bill at the last minute, as Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, one of just four Republicans to vote for the bill last month, threatened to change his vote over the assessment. The two Maine Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who voted for the bill, are also considering changing their vote because of the assessment.

All is not well in "credit union land," as insiders half-jokingly call the industry, and the challenges have prevented credit unions from taking advantage of bank stumbles.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Five men wearing masks and armed with handguns and a long gun ordered McCoy FCU employees to lie on the ground while one robber jumped the counter into the teller area to open cash drawers.

MONETT, Mo. – Pemco Technologies has been rebranded as JHA Payment Processing Solutions, following its acquisition by Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.

ALBANY, N.Y. – New York Gov. Patterson is expected to sign into law a bill passed by the state legislature that will allow the state's insurance companies to deposit their funds into federally insured credit unions.

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. – Kinecta FCU announced yesterday it has contracted with First Marblehead to provide it with a variety of services for its private student loan program.

MILWAUKEE – Guardian CU said yesterday it has deployed VSoft's ASP platform, VServe, to handle branch item capture, image exchange and research/archiving of its images.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The Golden 1 CU said yesterday it has introduced an iPhone and iPad application for its mobile banking.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Credit Union Journal still is accepting nominations for its 2010 Best Practices Awards, but the deadline to do so is looming.

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Alaska USA FCU on Saturday completed its acquisition of four branches from Arrowhead Central CU, even as NCUA was taking over the troubled one-time $1.1 billion credit union.

WASHINGTON – The credit union lobby, reluctant to be seen as "grave dancers," was calculating what yesterday's death of long-time West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd will mean to the Senate's expected vote on the bank bill later this week, which was going to be very close already.

WASHINGTON – The credit union lobby was jolted this morning by the death of Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia at 92, putting final passage of the bank reform bill and its interchange amendment temporarily in doubt.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Golden 1 Credit Union has launched a new person-to-person (P2P) payment service called EZPay Personal Payments that allows members to send money electronically to other individuals with Internet access.

RALEIGH, N.C.-SECU's forthcoming NSF program is aptly called "Another Chance," not "Second Chance." The CU already offers overdraft protection. In addition, each member gets two days per year to bounce checks and not be charged NSF fees, said Rick Rhoads, SVP, e-services at SECU.

WASHINGTON-CUNA last week honored state associations for excellence in public relations, marketing and advertising during the American Association of CU Leagues' 2010 Communicators/GAPS Conference. Winners included:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.-CU Journal is accepting nominations for its 2010 Best Practices Awards. We've deliberately made it very easy to enter. Nominations may be submitted by credit unions themselves, a CUSO, a trade association and suppliers to the CU community that have clients they believe exemplify the best practice in implementing a particular product or service. Go to www.cujournal.com for details.

Two western credit unions — one that doesn't offer electronic bill payment, one that does but questions whether it should — are among those challenging the notion that this expensive online service is worth the cost.

June

RALEIGH, N.C.-SECU will begin sending text alerts of non-sufficient funds to members who are about to go negative, giving checking account holders "Another Chance" to cover a bad item before 5:30 p.m. the same day.