SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - Norton Community CU has a new name and will soon have a new office to call its home. The $150 million credit union changed its name to AltaVista CU on April 1 and will break ground next week on a new headquarters in the nearby Redlands. The credit union, chartered in 1943 to serve civilian employees at Norton Air Force Base, was converted to a multiple group credit union in 1994 after the air base closed, then to a community charter in 200 covering San Bernardino County. Plans for the new headquarters call for a 22,000 square-foot home office and branch.

SARALAND, Ala. – Three men burst into Mobile Educators CU Tuesday afternoon leaped over the counters to stuff bags full with cash, then made their escape–all within 33 seconds. Video surveillance footage shows the suspects, all dressed in black hooded sweatshirts, bursting into the credit union and fleeing in under a minute’s time. There were no members present at the time and no one was injured during the heist, police said. The amount of cash stolen was not disclosed. A stolen gray Buick believed used as a getaway car in the heist was discovered about a mile away from the credit union.

WALL STREET – A credit union market that has been tossed and turned by an ongoing shake-out among back-office vendors won’t be calmed any too soon, with a major restructuring on tap over the next few months. That’s when major outsourcers like PHH Mortgages, First Data Corp. and Open Solutions will complete their going-private deals. At the same time, others will be going public, with initial public offerings for Visa USA, Discover, Metavante and Teradata all on tap. Still other major players in the market like Digital Insight, John H. Harland Co. and Corillian are completing sales to larger entities. The Wall Street rumor mill and market activity suggest that the dealmaking is not over yet.

WALL STREET – In the continuing frenzy over buyouts and spin-offs, speculators are looking at the possibility that Western Union will be taken private, just five months after it was spun off again as a public company. The speculation was heightened yesterday afer Fitch Ratings circulated a report that the world’s leading money transmitter could be a target for a leveraged buyout. The speculation comes just a week after First Data Corp., which spun-off Western Union last October, agreed to be taken private by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in one of the biggest corporate buyouts ever. Fitch cited a sharp rise in Western Union’s five-year credit default swap spreads after announcement of the $29 billion First Data deal, as well as indications that the tax-free nature of the Western Union spin-off would be unaffected by an LBO. A deal for Western Union, said Fitch, could be of the same size as the First Data deal. Western Union, which was acquired by First Data in 1995, was founded in 1851 and was one of the 11 original publicly traded companies to be tracked in the Dow Jones average. The company now operates the world’s biggest remittance network, with more than 300,000 agents in over 250 countries.

DENVER – A shareholder of First Data Corp. filed suit yesterday to block the huge $29 billion takeover of the company, saying the payments processor is worth more than the $34-a-share offered by private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. The purported class action suit seeks a court order blocking the deal, one of the biggest buyouts ever, “until the company adopts and implements a procedure or process to obtain the highest possible price.” A ‘go-shop’ provision in the takeover deal allows First Data to shop for a better deal than the KKR offer, which the suing shareholder, Chris Larson, said is “wholly inadequate”. The KKR offer represents a 26% premium on the closing price of First Data shares the Friday before the deal was announced.

NEW YORK – Student loan giant Sallie Mae agreed with the New York Attorney General’s office yesterday to change the marketing of its student loans and pay $2 million into a fund to educate students and parents about the financial aid industry. The settlement is part of a widening probe of payments and other inducements in the student loan business in which many colleges have created ‘preferred lender’ lists and entered revenue sharing with some lenders in exchange for steering business their way. In many case, representatives of private lenders were found to be manning call centers where college students were directed to learn about financing. Sallie Mae, once a government sponsored enterprise and now the nation’s top student lender, agreed to stop running call centers or provide other staffing for college financial aid offices, stop paying financial aid officers for serving on advisory boards, and to stop paying for trips for college loan officers. Citibank, which does business with about 3,000 schools, agreed last week to pay $2 million into the state fund. As part of the probe, six schools–University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Syracuse University, Fordham University, Long Island University and St. John’s University-- have also agreed to reimburse students $3.3 million for inflated loan prices caused by revenue sharing agreements. Sallie Mae was founded in 1972 to create a secondary market for guaranteed student loans originated by banks and credit unions, but was fully privatized in 2005 by which time it had become the nation’s largest student loan originator and manager of a student loan portfolio of more than $140 billion.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The collapse of the housing market almost 2,500 miles away, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, is being cited as one of the major reasons for the NCUA takeover of Huron River Area CU, two months ago. Dozens of members took out loans to build homes in the Ft. Myers area only to see the loans plunge under water because of a collapse in the local housing market. At least half a dozen of the members have filed suit in Lee County court against the builders, First Home Builders, a subsidiary of Hovnavian Enterprises, and Construction Loan Co., an affiliate of the troubled credit union, claiming fraud in the sale of the homes. Despite the problem loans, Huron River Area CU had reported strong financials in 2006, with $5.2 million in net income, 11.3% capital and 1.7% return-on-average assets. NCUA took over the $350 million credit union in February, one of the biggest credit union conservatorships in years.

DENVER – NCUA said yesterday it is notifying members of New Horizons Community CU, a financially ailing $300 million credit union it took over a year ago, of a potential data breach of their personal financial information. The data was on a laptop computer that was stolen from a consultant doing due diligence for Bellco CU, another Denver credit union reviewing whether to acquire the troubled institution. The information contained loan records for about 9,000 of the credit union’s 19,500 members. John McKechnie, spokesman for NCUA, said there is no indication the laptop was stolen because of the members’ information or that the thief knew what was on it. “The information is encrypted with several layers of security,” McKechnie told The Credit Union Journal. NCUA is taking the unusual step of making the theft public because of the ongoing concern about data security and identity theft, he added. New Horizons was taken over partly because of its exposure to sub-prime auto loans, the credit union was one of the biggest customers of subprime auto lender CENTRIX Financial. The credit union ended last year with a $20.1 million loss, 3.3% capital and a negative return-on-average assets of 8.6%.

PROVO, Utah – A local couple who planned to rob Utah Community CU and float down the Provo River to a getaway, are headed up the river, instead. Patrick Burr and his wife Heather had planned to hold-up the riverside branch, then make their getaway in inner tubes, but were given away by the husband’s best friend, who turned out to be a police informant. The two were arrested on November 30, the day before the would-be robbery was supposed to occur. By that time, the getaway plan had been changed to include a stolen car, after Heather Burr’s vehicle, which had the inner tubes inside, was impounded on an insurance violation. The husband-and-wife team of foiled robbers face up to five years in prison when they are sentenced.

MODESTO, Calif. – Mocse CU said yesterday it has contracted with Gila Group to provide it with collection services for delinquent loan and credit card accounts. Loans 15 to 30 days delinquent and Visa accounts 15 to 60 days overdue will be worked on Gila 1s Dialer to help control delinquency levels. Gila is an Austin, Texas unit of Gila Corp.

MINNEAPOLIS – Elan Financial Services said yesterday it signed an agreement with tiny WiServ CU in Tulsa to manage its credit card program. WilServ has 1,400 credit card accounts and $2.6 million in receivables. Elan Financial is a unit of U.S. Bancorp.

SCHNECTADY, N.Y. – Fast-growing Sunmark FCU plans to move its headquarters to a new project being built outside the city center. The project will consist of a three-story, 56,000 square-foot building. The $450 million credit union plans to occupy about three-fourths of the building.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. –Southeast Corporate FCU broke ground here Monday on a new headquarters. The $5 million project is a two-story, 30,000-foot building, with an option to add two more floors. The building was designed by HBE Financial Facilities in St. Louis, which has designed more than 600 financial buildings around the country. Southeast Corporate serves about 470 credit unions, mostly in the southeast, and has about $4 billion in assets.

EAGLE BUTTE, S.D. – NCUA announced yesterday it has approved a charter for CR Community First FCU, in this Native American Reservation. The field of membership will be th 12,000 residents of the Cheyenne River Reservation in Dewey and Ziebach counties. The credit union was sponsored by the Cheyenne River Housing Authority and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council. It is only the second new credit union chartered this year, after only six new charters last year.

ALBANY, N.Y. – The credit union lobby will try again to get a share of the lucrative municipal deposits market in the Empire State, with four separate bills introduced in this year’s legislature to allow credit unions, as well as savings and loans and savings association to accept municipal deposits. Lobbyists with the New York CU League and representatives from several credit unions, including Erie County FCU, Geneseo FCU, Mid-Hudson Valley FCU, Oceanside Christopher FCU, Sidney FCU, Suffolk FCU , among them, met last week with lawmakers to press their case. Only commercial banks are currently allowed to accept deposits from state and local government agencies.

RESTON, Va. – Student loan giant Sallie Mae reported its retired CEO and current chairman of the board, Albert Lord received almost $1.1 million in compensation for heading the board last year, the vast majority of it in stock options. Lord, who built the company after privatizing it from a government sponsored enterprise, received $875,000 worth of stock options last year and $100,000 in pay for serving as non-executive chairman, according to the company’s annual proxy statement. Lord own one million Sallie mae shares and options to acquire another seven million shares. Lord’s successor as CEO, Thomas Fitzpatrick, earned $16.6 million last year.

PURCHASE, N.Y. – Last year’s initial public offering for MasterCard International paid huge dividends for the card giant’s top management, some of whom took home as much as triple their pre-IPO compensation. An annual proxy statement filed by MasterCard with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows Robert Selander, the president and CEO of MasterCard, earned a total of $15.3 million last year, 37% more than the $11.2% he earned in 2005. Alan Heuer, the company’s chief operating officer, earned $10.3 million last year, almost triple the year before; Noah Hanft, general counsel, earned $3.5 million last year, triple the year before; and Chris McWilton, chief financial officer, earned $2.7 million, up from $280,000 in 2005. Those four executives were also paid $11 million in benefits, including stock options, restricted stock and performance unit, on March 1, with $5 million going to Selander; $2.7 million to Heuer; $1.75 million to mcWilton and $1.35 million to Hanft. MasterCard, which went public last May in one of the most successful IPOs in years, is asking shareholders to approve a $500 million buyback of its class M shares from four banking giants who control the company: JP Morgan Chase, Citicorp, HSBC and Bank of America.

FT. MYERS, Fla. – An intellectual property rights company filed suit against Bank of America charging the bank giant’s ‘Keep the Change’ program infringes on the company’s patent. Every Penny Counts Inc. claims the program, under which BofA rounds up every Visa card purchase to the nearest dollar and deposits the difference into a savings account, was described in a patent acquired in 2000 by the company. Every Penny Counts claims that BofA knew of the claim and neglected to negitiate a license for its use of the patent, which has helped it open a million new savings accounts and 700,000 checking accounts. The banking giant has applied for its own patent for Keep the Change.

DALLAS – TNB Card Services said yesterday it signed two more credit unions to card processing deals. The credit unions are: EMBSLA CU in Milwaukee and Superior Choice CU of Superior, Wis. TNB is a unit of credit union-owned Town North Bank.

PORTLAND, Me. – Synergent, a CUSO owned by area credit unions, announced yesterday it has signed with vSoft to provide merchant capture to its existing check imaging offerings. The web-based iMerchant Capture system will allow credit union members to provide their business customers with the ability to remotely capture and electronically send deposits, eliminating courier costs. Business customers can use a low speed scanner to capture the check images and transfer the images and data through a secure transmission.