* The Hilton Washington has 1,119 sleeping rooms. GAC attendees occupy and estimated 95% of them each year.

SECU Offering New Mutual Funds

A large-scale natural or man-made disaster in the 21st century is a frightening possibility. The financial services industry learned valuable lessons from the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons and from the 2001 terrorist attacks.

CYBERSPACE - Perhaps nothing better illustrates the extraordinary evolution in consumer attitudes toward debt than the Internet.

The media and political discussions surrounding who credit unions are supposed to serve experienced a transition since the House Ways and Means Committee hearings on tax-exempt justification.

SAN DIMAS, Calif. - WesCorp has unveiled an employee-based political action committee.

WASHINGTON - Mark Wolff well remembers just when he learned what CUNA & Affiliates' Governmental Affair Conference (GAC) really meant. The lesson had little to do with the usual stellar lineup of Congressional and government speakers, moments of historic significance to the credit union movement, delegate trips to Capitol Hill, or the fact that Wolff, CUNA's senior vice president of communications, had been running the GAC for a number of years.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it has awarded the National CU Foundation a $415,000 grant to fund pilot Individual Development Accounts programs at three pilot credit union organizations. The organizations will provide volunteer income tax assistance and advise low-income families applying for Earned Income Tax Credits, which will be used to open savings accounts earmarked for mortgage down payments, the foundation announced yesterday.

Word-of-mouth and reputation are two key motivators of why people do business with financial institutions. That's why it's critical to understand how members and potential members perceive their experiences at various points of contact. This knowledge impacts how credit unions can more effectively attract new members, generate increased deposits and reduce attrition.

Congratulations to any and all credit unionists who can Hike the Hill this week for CUNA's GAC and do so with a straight face. Because you've come a long way, baby, and the ability to talk one game while walking another is the true hallmark of a Washington insider, and isn't that what credit unions set out to do a decade ago?

A large-scale natural or man-made disaster in the 21st century is a frightening possibility. The financial services industry learned valuable lessons from the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons and from the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The "modest means" study, MSAP, and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report are fading into the credit union movement's rear-view mirror. No startling revelations, no damning findings, no sweeping legislative recommendations-and thanks to Congressional transitions, no adversarial Ways and Means Chairman to lead an offensive against credit unions. Actually, it was all a little anticlimactic.

There is so much more that credit unions want to do to better serve consumers-and much that CUNA wants to do to help credit unions do that. Yet, the hard fact is that, sometimes, credit unions need to secure some changes in law or regulations just to create a more flexible operating environment in which to thrive.

As the new, 110th Congress settles down to business, credit unions will once again be seeking needed relief from outdated and burdensome regulations in an updated version of the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act, or CURIA. NAFCU has been working with Reps. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) and Ed Royce (R-CA), the original cosponsors of the previous versions of the bill, to help ready the latest iteration of this vital legislation, and we hope it will be ready for introduction very soon.

The media and political discussions surrounding who credit unions are supposed to serve experienced a transition since the House Ways and Means Committee hearings on tax-exempt justification.

With the recent increase in postal rates, some credit unions may be considering migrating to electronic documents and delivery channels, even though reports show that an overwhelming majority (between 85% to 90%) of consumers still prefer to receive their statements in the mail and pay bills with a paper check.

A robust financial system should have a variety of financial institution charter options, by type-such as a commercial bank, thrift, credit union; chartering jurisdiction-state or federal; and organizational form- stock corporation or mutual.

DENVER – First Data, which has been restructuring over the past quarter, announced Friday the awarding of $8.5 million in restricted stock grants to 10 top executives. The biggest grants went to CEO Henry ‘Ric’ Duques, 96,000 shares valued at $2.4 million, and to Ed Labry, the head of the company’s commercial payments business who joined the company after it acquired Concord EFS, 45,600 shares worth $1.2 million, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The restricted shares were awarded Feb. 21 and vest in four annual installments. First Data, which spun off its Western Union unit last October, acquired two companies last week and announced it is exiting the checks and money orders business.

AUBURN, Me. – Credit union volunteers and executives around the state were mourning last week’s death of Pauline Caouette-Moore, a 33-year volunteer for Rainbow FCU and vice chairman of the board when she died. Caouette-Moore also served as a member of the Maine CU League’s government affairs committee for many years and was active in her credit union right up to her final days, when she lost a two year battle with ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

SHASTA LAKE, Calif. – A former branch manager for Golden 1 CU was arrested last week for allegedly stealing $73,260 from elderly members. Cora Sue Perryman, 62, told police she and her husband hat hit hard times financially and she didn’t think the members would miss their money. The thefts allegedly began in June 2004 and continued until last April, when one members noticed a shortage in her account. The victims have been made whole by the credit union.