LAS VEGAS - Affinity FCU has completed a beta on a branch item capture solution that it is projecting will pay for itself within one year.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -

WASHINGTON - The House Judiciary Committee narrowly passed a bankruptcy reform bill last week that would allow bankruptcy court judges to restructure subprime mortgages under Chapter 13.

WASHINGTON - CUNA called on TJX Cos. and Visa to give credit unions more time to consider a $41-million offer by TJX to settle cards claims related to the massive data breach of 2005, just as credit unions were receiving their electronic proxies to vote on the settlement.

WASHINGTON - Secondary mortgage market giant Fannie Mae priced $7 billion in new preferred shares last week, part of an effort to shore up its flagging finances due to the ongoing mortgage crisis.

FACEBOOK.com - Twenty credit union executives logged in to Facebook.com in two weeks to post their technology plans as part of the Technology Wish List 2008–and revealed that social networking and mobile banking are the technologies to watch this year.

Throughout 2007, the Credit Union Journal is profiling the credit unions of each U.S. state and D.C. Rather than appear in alphabetical order, the states are being featured in the order they became states.

Meetings

SAGINAW, Mich. - Team One CU here built its own cross-sales software, then made back the development costs by selling the solution to 23 other credit unions through a partnership with its core vendor.

NORTH HAVEN, Conn. - Connex CU opened a temporary branch at the former Hamden Town Hall, to replace the nearby branch that was heavily damaged by a Nov. 18 fire and remains closed.

SAN DIEGO - In my opinion, every core system is a rewrite waiting to happen.

Matadors Community CU, Chastworth, Calif., promoted Melissa Broadwell to senior vice president of administration and operations and Eva Abed to vice president of operations.

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DALLAS - Credit Union Journal asked FICS Mortgage Servicer Manager Matthew Perez to weigh in on how credit unions should be responding to the subprime mortgage debacle.

LAS VEGAS - When a consumer goes online to shop for a mortgage, there’s a chance they will shop their credit union’s website. But there’s an equally good chance they’ll search Google or Yahoo or LendingTree, where it’s unlikely their CU will ever appear.

At press time, the number of co-sponsors on the CURIA bill. 217 are needed to have a majority. (c) 2007 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.cujournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Don’t think for a minute that KeyPoint Credit Union just wants to hook up with Generation Y as a result of the pioneering mobile-banking service it launched last month at Facebook.com.

WASHINGTON - Some credit unions do make and have made so-called “non-traditional mortgages.” According to CUNA:

LAS VEGAS - OSU FCU said it has started using Integrated Media Management’s document preparation engine, TotaleAtlas, to create a more environmentally friendly business process at each of its 11 branches and call center. “The main reason we decided to implement TotaleAtlas was to eliminate paper,” Paula Higgins, data processing manager at OSU Federal, explained. “Not only does this allow us to rely less on natural resources, but TotaleAtlas also solved our problem of running out of vault storage space for the loan documents.”

SAN DIEGO - Originally intended as a tree-saver, the document management system at USA Federal Credit Union here evolved to shoulder the weight of the credit union’s business continuity plan (BCP) during the recent California wildfires.