SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. - Members' account and Social Security numbers were printed on the outside of envelopes mailed recently by Priority One Credit Union, based here.

South Carolina CU Bill Awaits Gov. Approval

NEW BERLIN, Wis. - Homeowners who have fallen victim to sub-prime mortgage lenders will soon be "rescued" by Landmark Credit Union through a new program credit union officials say is designed to save them from rapidly rising interest rates that can increase the amount of the mortgage beyond the value of their property.

Events

PLANO, Texas - Southwest Corporate Federal Credit Union's 30th annual Economic Forum will feature a trio of credit union economists Oct. 16-17 at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center in Frisco, Texas.

If it weren't for the great admiration of marketers, CEOs would probably ease their stress level and amount of medication just to simply say, "Do as I ask, and don't think."

It didn't take me hundreds of management meetings to learn that I'd rather stick a fork in my eye than have another conversation about who isn't cleaning up after themselves in the lunchroom. It is one thing that I know my CEO and I have in common. However, aside from our loathing of the lack of office etiquette and our love of the credit union, we speak very different languages. It has taken years to discover how differently we work and view the world.

I was just reading your article about the long term forecast for CUs (CU Journal, May 21). I think there is a future, but it will only be for the large credit unions. I am a manager of a small credit union in Upstate New York. We have served the people of a V.A. Medical Center for 55 years.

Your mother may have raised you to send thank you notes, and for that you should send her a thank you (those online e-thank yous not only don't count, they're almost anti-thank yous). But even the most responsible and productive thank-you note-writers among you likely never send a card to NCUA, and not just because Hallmark has yet to create its Federal Regulatory Agency collection. Still, you should.

During a recent conversation with a colleague the question came up, "When was the last time your financial institution called to thank you for your business and suggest that they would love the opportunity to do it again?" My associate mentioned he has had checking and savings accounts and loans at numerous financial institutions during the last several years and could not recall any of them reaching out with a phone call.

There's been a lot of news in the credit union industry lately about name changes. Some credit unions have changed their name, then changed it back. There are names tied to places. Names tied to the history of the credit union. And the latest fad-names that mean nothing at all. With all these GOings-on in the industry it makes you wonder-what happens if you stop getting clever, or mysterious, or overly creative and just GO for it!

TEMECULA, Calif. – An off-duty Oceanside police detective is credited with helping arrest four of the seven people who robbed a USA FCU branch here Friday afternoon. An unusually-large group of at least seven robbers were involved in the hold-up, according to police. No one was hurt, and the robbers fled on foot as an off-duty Oceanside detective followed them. one of the robbers attempted to carjack a vehicle in a nearby parking lot. Four suspected robbers were located and arrested a short time later, but police were looking for three more suspects.

HILO, Hi. – Cliff Diaz, the former OnPoint CU CEO who raised waves around the country with his controversial million-dollar-plus salary, announced Friday he is donating $1 million to his high school alma mater, the only Catholic school on Hawaii’s Big Island. The $1 million gift will be used to help fund athletics and academics at St. Joseph School, where the recently retired Diaz graduated in 1967. Diaz, who built OnPoint, formerly Portland Teachers CU into the state’s largest credit union, retired a year ago after 10 years in the $2 billion credit union’s corner office. It was Diaz’s 2003 pay of $1.6 million that caused a major controversy among members in 2004, when it was publicly disclosed and gave fuel to the bankers’ local campaign against the credit union tax exemption. The gift from Diaz, who moved back to Hawaii after last year’s retirement, was the largest ever to the Big Island’s only Catholic school, which was founded in 1869. Diaz, the son of a Hilo banker, left Hawaii and moved to the mainland because jobs were scarce on the island.

SAN FRANCISCO – Preston Martin, the former Fed Vice Chair and S&L regulator who created Freddie Mac, died last week at 83. It was Martin, the former California S&L regulator under then-Gov. Ronald Reagon, who oversaw the creation of Freddie Mac in 1970 after he went to Washington to head the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, then the S&L regulator. As state regulator during the 1970's and 1980's in California, the vanguard of the S&L industry, Martin foresaw the eventual fatal squeeze on many S&Ls by interest-rate compression. Martin left the S&L regulator years before the S&L crisis and founded PMI Mortgage Insurance, now the largest private sector private mortgage insurer. He was called back to Washington by to serve as a Governor on the Federal Reserve Board. As Reagan's first appointment to the Fed and its vice chairman from 1982 to 1986, he led a challenge to then-Chairman Paul Volcker's tight-money policy -- intended to prevent a return to the inflationary late '70s but which often ran counter to the Reagan administration's efforts to spur economic growth. Those clashes contributed to Mr. Martin's resignation as vice chairman -- ushering in the Alan Greenspan era as Fed chairman when Mr. Volcker decided not to seek another term as chairman in 1987.

CHICAGO – Omelan Pleszkewyex, who co-founded of Selfreliance Ukrainian American CU in 1951 with just $500, died here last week at 99. Pleszkewycz, a Ukrainian immigrant who fled the Nazi European advances in 1949 to come to America, served as the credit union’s first treasurer and CEO from 1951 to 1978 as he became a leader of the local Ukrainian-American community. He and others began the credit union–which has grown to almost $500 million in assets–at the local Ukrainian social club and deposited the pooled funds in a local bank, before creating their own facility. Pleszkewycz also helped foster other of the nation’s Ukrainian credit unions, as head of the Ukrainian American credit unions from 1966 to 1977, then as president of the World Council of Ukrainian CUIs, from 1977 to 1987. After he retired form administrative duties, he remained on the staff and worked five days a week until three years ago, when he cut back to three days a week.

BRUCE CROSSING, Mich. – Settlers Co-operative CU is scheduled to break ground tomorrow on a new headquarters building. It will provide the $10 million credit union with 4,700 square feet of space. Settlers Co-Operative was chartered in 1932 and was originally located in the Settlers Co-Cooperative grocery store, before moving to its current location in 1981.

WALL STREET – Morgan Stanley announced Friday it expects to complete the spin-off of Discover Financial Services, the nation's fourth-biggest credit-card network and the parent of PULSE EFT, on June 30 and shares will begin trading July 2. The network is one of the biggest payment systems in the nation and provides electronic funds services to more than 2,000 credit union. Investors will receive one Discover share for every two Morgan Stanley shares they own and Morgan Stanley will receive $100 million as part of the spin-off. The deal is Morgan Stanley's second attempt to split the credit-card unit, acquired in 1997 when the New York-based firm combined with Dean Witter Discover & Co. It acquired PULSE EFT, which was owned by more than 4,000 credit unions and banks, in 2005 and combined it with Discover. The market for payments systems is hot, with shares in MasterCard almost quadrupling in value since going public last May, and IPOs scheduled later this year for Visa USA and Metavante Corp., the Marshall & Ilsley unit that owns the NYCE network.

LANSING, Mich. – Credit union representatives began kicking around new ideas for legislative reform, including giving management more power to expel members; authorizing trust powers and easing CUSO rules. A group organized by the Michigan CU League met May 24 to review the four-year-old CU Reform law and decide whether new reforms ought to be made. The panel made several recommendations, including: allowing management to expel or suspend members, an authority now reserved for the board; allowing credit unions to expel members for unusual account activity; expanding powers to offer estate, or trust accounts; and expediting the field of membership expansion process. The panel also recommended provisions allowing credit union CEOs to receive automated loan approvals without obtaining prior approval from the board for each loan; and allowing senior management to receive commissions on loans, as long as they are not involved in the underwriting process.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.– CO-OP Financial Services, which has been emphasizing its strong ties to credit unions, has taken steps to ensure only credit unions have a say in how the electronic funds transfer network is managed by barring credit unions that convert to mutual savings bank from earning patronage dividends or voting. The action, taken last week during the annual meeting here of the credit union-owned network, will also require any mutual savings bank that converts to commercial bank, form participating in the network. Dave Maus, chairman of CO-OP and president of Public Service CU, said there has been a lot of rhetoric and concern about the ideals of credit unions and that those principles must remain strong.

SAN DIEGO – USA FCU said it is the first credit union in San Diego to offer its members envelope-free ATMs with check-imaging technology and the first to offer it through the credit union-owned CO-OP Financial Services. The ATMs count and validate cash amounts, visually display the deposits, then provide receipts showing the amount of the deposit or actual images of the deposited checks. The member can even deposit a stack of cash with the bills facing in any direction. The ATMs process the check images directly through the Federal Reserve system, allowing for faster clearing and funds availability. The ATMs also help reduce fraud because almost half of fraud committed at the ATM is done using empty envelopes. The CO-OP is the first and only ATM processor to offer credit unions an integrated system to capture, proof, and clear digital check images from ATMs. Image-enabled ATMs offered by Diebold and NCR.