Discussions with many credit union people confirm that two industry trends of great concern are lagging membership growth and deteriorating earnings. CU membership growth since 1996 has been a lackluster 2.5%, and only 1.5% since 2002. Factoring out temporary members from indirect lending, net growth has likely been flat, if not negative.

MUSKOGEE, Okla. – In what may be considered a rapid move through the judicial system, a 19-year-old boy pleaded guilty to Friday to being the getaway car driver in the armed robbery at MTC FCU, in nearby Ardmore, Okla.–just eight weeks after the hold-up. David Wiley nows faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced. Wiley confessed to waiting outside the credit union while his alleged accomplice, Robert Mielnicki, went in and robbed the credit union of $6,700. Mielnicki is awaiting trial. The conviction so soon after a criminal incident is very rare, as robbery cases can take years to conclude.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. – A suspect in a 2005 counterfeit check-cashing scheme was arrested last week in Minnesota. Kevin Warner, 34 was charged passing dozens of bogus checks worth thousands of dollars on an account purporting to be at Patriot FCU. Warner and his girlfriend and an accomplice allegedly printed checks on a laptop computer and cashed them at area businesses. Both Warner and his accomplice, Mathew Kerr, are convicted felons who served time together in state prison and were on parole during the time of the alleged counterfeiting.

KINGSPORT, Tenn – Free WiFi access to the Internet is now available in portions of this city thanks to support from Eastman CU. The credit union is underwriting the cost of the free access through a program established in conjunction with the Greater Kingsport Alliance for Development. The broader access expands on a pilot program launched in 2005 in which just downtown was offered WiFi. The expanded project vicinity will encompass downtown Kingsport, Riverview, Cotton Mill Village and the Meadowview areas. Plans are to expand further. Local police, fire and rescue services will also be able to more effectively communicate and monitor specif ic locations within the WiFi coverage area.

FRANKLIN, Tenn. – Southeast Financial FCU said last week it has entered the Bowling Green, Ky., market with the acquisition of Fort Campbell FCU’s branch here. The $325 million South Financial plans to renovate the 3,000 square-foot branch and convert it to its own brand. The purchase represents a bid for Southeast Financial to expand its footprint in Kentucky.

BATON ROUGE, La. – Campus FCU said it is rolling out a one-card program with Louisiana State University to provide IDs that work as the credit union’s debit cards. The card will have two magnetic stripes, one encoded with the students’ ID number ands the other with a Campus FCU account number, if the student chooses to join the credit union. The card will not toperate as a credit card. Students will be able to choose the own PIN.

WARRENVILLE, Ill. – Members United Corporate FCU, formed by last year’s merger of the Illinois and New York corporate credit unions, announced Friday it has agreed to acquire The Central CU Fund, the oldest corporate in the nation. Central CU Fund, the $250 million corporate chartered in 1932 to serve Massachusetts credit unions, said the ability to leverage the products and services of the much-larger corporate, while maintaining a local presence, would be the best way to serve its members. Members United, which manages $11 billion in credit union funds, is the product of last year’s combination of Mid-States Corporate FCU with Empire Corporate FCU. The deal comes just a week after WesCorp FCU announced its plans to acquire SunCorp FCU, just as the giant California corporate is completing its acquisition of Tennessee’s Volunteer State Corporate FCU, or VolCorp.

RUSSELLVILLE, Ala. – Police are searching for a ring of check counterfeiters who have passed dozens of fake payroll checks on area institutions, leaving some of them with thousands of dollars in losses. Listerhill CU reported that 17 checks, which appear to be payroll checks from Pilgrim’s Pride convenience stores, were returned because they were bogus. Similar checks were passed at at least two other local banks. The checks appear to have been passed by the same group of people, each of whom used alien registration cards as Ids when cashing the checks, police said. Police suggest the ring may be the same ones who passed $90,000 in phony payroll checks from Gold Kist a few years ago.

NEW YORK– M&F Worldwide, the holding company controlled by corporate raider Ronald Perelman, said Friday that first quarter earnings declined by 10% to 9.4 million, or 45 cents a share, as the company moves to consolidate its core Clarke American check printing operations with those of newly acquired John H. Harland Co. First quarter revenues inched up 2% to $191.3 million, most of it attributable to the company’s Licorice products division. Checks revenues were flat, with revenues for Clarke American’s financial institutions segment up 1% to $138.2 million; and for its direct consumers segment up less than 1% to $26.4 million. M&F said last week it has completed the $1.7 billion takeover of Harland and plans to merge its check printing operations with Clarke American to create the nation’s largest check-printer. M&F, which is controlled by Perelman’s MacAndrews and Forbes, acquired Clarke American in 2005 for $800 million.

WASHINGTON – Federal antitrust regulators on Friday approved First Data Corp.’s acquisition of online banking services provider FundsXpress Inc. The acquisition is one of a whirlwind of deals involving First Data, which acquired ATM network Instant Cash Services from Wells Fargo last month, just before it agreed to be acquired by private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. for $29 billion. FundsXpress provides a variety for credit unions, including online banking, bill payment and security. First Data has not disclosed the financial terms of the deal.

CALABASAS, Calif. – Countrywide Financial co-founder and CEO Angelo Mozilo, one of the highest paid corporate executives countrywide, earned almost $5 million by exercising options last week. Mozilo has taken home more than $350 million over the last three years–more than $250 million of it from the exercise of options. On Friday, Mozilo exercised options to purchase 46,000 Countrywide shares at $10.89 each, then sold the shares for $38.02 each, a gain of $1.25 million. That followed a profit of $1.27 million on Monday, and a $1.96 million on Wednesday, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mozilo still holds more than 5.2 million options to acquire Countrywide shares. Mozilo has earned almost $60 million so far this year with by exercising Countrywide options. Countrywide said last week that the 69-year-old executive has agreed to a curb in the cash and stock-based portion of his pay, which amount to half of last year’s $142 million pay-out.

NEW YORK – The ongoing shake-out in the corporate world, especially in financial services, is paying off in a big way for some credit union vendors, with three of the 10 highest-paid corporate executives last year among the biggest providers of services to credit unions, according to Forbes magazine’s annual list of best-paid executives. That includes William Foley, the CEO of Fidelity National Financial, the fourth highest-paid at $179.6 million, who spun off Fidelity National Information Services from the company’s core title insurance unit last year. And also Henry ‘Ric’ Duques, the CEO of First Data Corp., the ninth highest-paid at $98.2 million, who spun off the company’s Western Union operations and recently engineered the blockbuster $29 billion leveraged buyout of FDC. Between them, in seventh place, was Countrywide Financial’s Angelo Mozilo, who earned $142 million in 2006 running the nation’s largest mortgage bank. Also on the list, with $98.2 million in pay, was Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis, who has shaped the world financial markets by buying and selling some of the world’s biggest financial institutions over the last few years. The main component of executive pay last year was the exercise of options, which accounted for an average of 48% of all compensation, according to Forbes. Foley, for example, earned $154.1 million, while Duques earned $96.2 million, and Mozilo $72.1 million, by exercising options last year. Topping the list as the highest-paid CEO last year was Apple Inc. founder and CEO Steve Jobs, who was paid just a $1 salary, but took home $646.6 million in stock-based compensation. Jobs’ pay was more than twice that of the second highest paid, Ray Irani of Occidental. Petroleum, who earned $321.6 million. The rest of the top ten were: Barry Diller of AIC/InterActiveCorp, who earned $295 million; Terry Semel of Yahoo who earned $174 million; Michael Dell, founder and CEO of the computer company, $153.2 million; and Michael Jeffries, Abercrombie & Fitch Co., $114.6 million.

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The executive director of the Harrisburg Housing Authority was indicted yesterday on federal charges related to the alleged diversion of as much as $500,000 in housing funds to the defunct Greater Harrisburg Community CU, which he headed. The eight felony charges against Carl Payne include an allegation that he backdated documents that were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury. Payne was president of the five-year-old credit union, which was taken over and liquidated by NCUA in February 2006. The credit union, which had $1.6 million in assets when it was shuttered, was sponsored by the HHA, as well as the city of Harrisburg and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. NCUA liquidated the credit union after failing to find a merger mate and deciding that it couldn’t be rescued.

ALBANY, N.Y. – Skidmore (University) Employees FCU said it has agreed to merge into SEFCU, the credit union giant formerly known as State Employees FCU. Skidmore Employees FCU was chartered in 1974 and has more than $5.7 million in assets and over 1,000 members. This is the second merger in five months for $1.4 billion SEFCU, which acquired Niagara Frontier State Employees FCU in November.

PEARL, Miss. – Two suspects who robbed Members Exchange CU yesterday morning were let inside the branch by tellers after they identified themselves as law enforcement agents. Video tapes show that two of the three suspects were wearing masks and one of them was wearing body armor marked with ‘sheriff’ on the front of it. The robbers then came inside at 7:39 am and tied up three employees, then escaped with ‘several thousand dollars,’ according to police. A third suspect who drove the getaway vehicle is also being sought by police.

WASHINGTON – Fannie Mae, the secondary mortgage market giant burrowing out from a major accounting scandal, said its Chief Financial Officer Robert Blakely is stepping down at year-end. Blakely, who joined Fannie Mae from MCI Inc. in January 2006, will be succeeded by Stephen M. Swad. Mr. Blakely, 65 years old, will remain an executive vice president until leaving Fannie Mae at the end of the year.

McLEAN, Va. – Long-term mortgage rates remained unchanged this week, for the third week in a row, according to Freddie Mac. The average for the 30-year, fixed-rate loan was 6.16%, and for the 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage it was 5.87%, both the same as last week. ARM rates were also virtually unchanged, with the averages for both the five-year and one-year ARM declining by a single basis point each, to 5.87% and 5.42%, respectively. “The recently advanced report of first quarter gross domestic product was weaker than expected, growing only 1.3%. The housing market alone shaved a full percentage point off real GDP growth, said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac. Additionally, both consumer spending and price increases in consumer expenditures were quite tame in March. These contributing factors allowed mortgage rates to hold steady this week.”

CALABASAS, Calif. – Angelo Mozilo, the co-founder and CEO of Countrywide Financial, has taken a voluntary cut in his pay, which has amounted to as much as $350 million over the last three years. Mozilo, who has earned an estimated $65 million in the first four months of this year, said the move represents an attempt “to be responsive to the environment we’re in today,” the nation’s biggest mortgage bank said. The company said Mozilo’s base salary, performance-based bonus and equity-incentive pay, which totaled $42 million last year, would be down between 48% and 62% this year, depending on the company’s performance, Countrywide said. Mozilo also took home $72 million last year after exercising options. The 68-year-old mortgage kingpin has already earned about $10 million in cash compensation, and another $55 million from the exercise of options, through the first four months this year.

DENVER – First Data Corp., which has in a deal frenzy, said it has made a strategic investment in ViVOtech and will use the Santa Clara, Calif., company’s collection of new technologies that include Near Field Communication terminals and mobile payments software. First Data said it will be the lead investor in ViVOtech’s series C round of financing. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. Near Field Communication is a new short-range wireless connectivity technology that can simplify the way consumers make payments. First Data, which recently acquired FundsXpress and ATM network Instant Cash Services, has itself agreed to be acquired by private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. for $29 billion.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Fidelity National Information Services announced it has acquired Marketing Solutions Inc., a Birmingham, Ala.-provider of customer relationship management and profitability solutions. MSI develops web-based technology services that help credit unions and banks tailor offerings, cross-sell products and maximize customer relationships. The company’s products will be integrated with other FIS solutions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.