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PITTSFIELD, Mass. - In conjunction with the first ever Long Term Care Awareness Week, Greylock Insurance Agency and Berkshire Life Insurance Company of America announced an arrangement enabling Greylock FCU members to secure long term care insurance at a 10% permanent premium discount.

VILNIUS, Lithuania - Lithuania Central Credit Union has begun offering debit and credit cards for its affiliated credit unions, with plans to expand further into electronic banking in 2008. LCCU Chairman Sigitas Bubnys announced during a news conference on International Credit Union Day that the country's credit unions would become the first in the Baltics to offer payment cards. Currently, 27 credit unions are offering the Maestro debit cards and MasterCard credit cards and projections call for issuing 3,000 payment cards by Dec. 31, and 9,000 such cards by the end of 2008. By 2010, Bubnys said as many as 23,000 cards will be in circulation, including 17,000 debit cards. (c) 2007 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.cujournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com

SAN DIEGO - It won't be just the hills surrounding the Hyatt Hotel that will be smoldering when credit unions from California and Nevada meet here this week.

COON RAPIDS - Anoka Hennepin Credit Union (ACHU) and Anoka County Federal Credit Union (ACFCU) will officially become one financial cooperative on Dec. 31, following the recent vote of the members of the Circle Pines-based ACFCU.

FT. GEORGE, Belize - Kyle Frick, VP with Bend, Ore.-based Mid Oregon Credit Union here, offered a motivational message to the more than 180 people attending the annual meeting of the Belize Credit Union League.

Can credit unions run with the big dogs? And will only the big dogs survive? Since July CU Journal has been examining those issues in this series, beginning with the Great Dane CUs, and then the smaller, Chihauaha CUs. In this issue, we begin profiling successful, ROA-leading "Collies," those with $100 million to $250 million in assets. (c) 2007 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.cujournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - NCUA last week announced its Community Development Revolving Loan Fund had reached its threshold, having processed 40 loans totaling over $7 million during 2007 and bringing the total fund to more than $13 million. This is the largest number of loans approved by the Fund in a single year and totals the largest amount of loans ever recorded, the agency reported.

ORLANDO - Credit unions in central Florida are buying $60,000 worth of radio time to promote credit unions as financial institutions. Organized by the Central Florida Chapter of Credit Unions, the ads appeared across 12 stations in the Orlando MSA.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - In September, Allegacy Federal Credit Union hired Lori Timm as senior manager of intercultural markets. The concept of having a multi-cultural program isn't new for the $1.1-billion institution, which has had a system in place to better serve non-English speaking member segments since 2004.

2006 ROA 2005 ROA

SSCU Succeeds With CU Check 21

PHOENIX - A local inventor has filed suit against five credit unions, alleging they infringed on his patent for a system to provide loans to employees in order to fund their personal contributions to 401(k) retirement plans. The suit was transferred from U.S. District Court in Chicago, where First Northern CU, one of the credit unions, is located, to Phoenix, near the home of the Clark Mitchell, the patent holder. Mitchell's patent covers a so-called "Participation Loan," which funds an employee's matching share in a defined contribution pension plan, and the data processing for managing the plan. The patent describes a method of managing a loan for funding a pension.

When a credit union evaluates a new market for branching, household growth is almost always the first statistic they seek as a gauge of market opportunity. This is certainly sensible, since it is easier to thrive in a market where additional households can support the added branch than in a flat growth market where a new branch just carves the existing household pool into one more slice. This belief has led bankers to branch aggressively into Florida, Texas, Arizona, and other high-growth areas.

NEW ALBANY, Ind. - Authorities have little hope of recovering any of the $7 million a teller stole from Obelisk FCU, forcing NCUA to liquidate the 70-year-old credit union earlier this year, and sell off its good parts.

CONCORD, Calif. - Soaring losses in the real estate loan portfolio of Cal State 9 CU forced NCUA to take the $390-million state chartered credit union under conservatorship, with plans to either merge or sell the failed institution.

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. - Kimberley A. Withers, president, Meridian Trust FCU in Cheyenne, Wyo. Was named 2007 CUES Executive of the Year at the CUES' annual CEO Network. Also honored was Richard M. Grammatica, vice president of risk management at Tampa Bay FCU, Tampa Bay, Fla, who was named CUES Future Leader.

WACO, Texas -

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - NCUA is among five federal financial regulatory agencies that have issued final rules that provide consumers with an opportunity to "opt out" before a financial institution uses information provided by an affiliated company to market its products and services to the consumer. The final rules on affiliate marketing implement section 214 of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, which amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The final rules generally prohibit a financial institution from using certain information received from an affiliate to make a solicitation to a consumer unless the consumer is given notice and a reasonable opportunity to opt out of such solicitations, and the consumer does not opt out. The final rules apply to information obtained from the consumer's transactions or account relationships with an affiliate, any application the consumer submitted to an affiliate, and third-party sources, such as credit reports, if the information is to be used to send marketing solicitations. Nothing in the final rules supersedes or amends a consumer's existing right to opt out of the sharing of non-transaction or experience information under section 603(d) of the FCRA.

WASHINGTON - The federal financial institution regulatory agencies, including NCUA, and the Federal Trade Commission have sent to the Federal Register for publication final rules on identity theft "red flags" and address discrepancies.