RICHARDSON, Texas – Texans CU announced yesterday it has acquired Curley Insurance Group, a 19-year-old group of insurance companies.

1/10/2007 NEDERLAND, Texas – Community leaders joined representatives of FivePoint CU Friday to unveil a new community resource developed after Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast a year ago – a mobile credit union.

TUKWILA, Wash. – Credit union giant Boeing Employees CU said yesterday it has selected CO-OP Financial Services to provide it ATM processing and signature debit services. In addition, the $6.6 billion credit union has extended for five years its contract to provide surcharge-free access for its 465,000 members to the CO-OP’s ATM network. The credit union-owned CO-OP has more than 2,000 credit union member/owners and provides access to more than 25,000 surcharge-free ATMs.

NEDERLAND, Texas – Community leaders joined representatives of FivePoint CU Friday to unveil a new community resource developed after Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast a year ago–a mobile credit union. Dubbed ‘America’s Financial Convenience Store, the 38 foot-long, 13 foot-tall mobile branch will bring the credit union to places its never been before, and more importantly, allow it to operate during and after natural disasters when financial services are normally shut down. The full-service branch is equipped with a teller window and two ATMs, as well as desks for two loan officers, and a GPS tracking system and satellite communications, which allow for real-time transactions, and continuation of services when electrical power may be cut off. Officials of the 40,000-member credit union decided to develop the mobile branch after Hurricane Rita, which destroyed its main office, located in nearby Groves. Credit union officials plan to use the mobile branch at community events and festivals and sports events.

PASADENA, Calif. – Wescom CU announced yesterday its newly formed credit card bank for credit unions has made its first purchase, the $3 million portfolio of California Coastline CU. Wescom has switched charters to that of a central credit union, enabling it to provide services such as credit card management, for other credit unions. Separately, officials with another fledgling credit card bank for credit unions, called Union Financial Services, said yesterday they have still not received regulatory clearance to allow it to proceed with the project, but hope to soon.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Struggling ATM operator Global Axcess Corp. said yesterday it signed a cash management agreement with Eland Financial Services, a unit of U.S. Bancorp. Under the deal Elan will provide vault cash and ATM monitoring for the 4,600 ATMs operated by the Nationwide Money Service unit of Global Axcess. The company reported earlier that it had a disagreement with its previous cash servicer, Wells Fargo, over the amount of reserves to be posted as collateral. Global Axcess reported a third-quarter loss of $3.6 million, after taking $3 million in asset impairment charges.

PORTLAND, Ore. – TRM Corp., the nation’s second largest independent ATM operator, reported yesterday that its auditor, Pricewaterhousecooper LLP declined to stand for reappointment because of numerous questions about the company’s financial auditing. TRM, which wrote down a huge $100 million worth of impaired assets in the third quarter, has ineffective controls over accounts receivable, equipment and accrued liabilities, said the auditor in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. TRM, which operates more than 14,000 ATMs–6,000 of them part of the CO-OP Network–is in the process of shedding its once core photocopier business. The company also sold its Canadian ATM operations recently. The two transactions have raised the company over $25 million. TRM has struggled since it acquired eFunds fleet of 14,000 ATMs in 2004, as the company tried to make itself over into an ATM operator.

ANTIGO, Wis. – CoVantage CU said yesterday it has implemented Financial Industry Computer Systems’ residential mortgage loan servicing system. The $550 million credit union is now using FICs’ Mortgage Servicer, Mortgage Accountant and Real-Time Access data exchange. FICs is based in Dallas.

WHEATFIELD, N.Y. – North Tonawanda Community FCU is seeking a permanent property tax exemption to for moving a branch into one of the state’s industrial development zones. The Niagara County Industrial Development Agency said it is willing to provide a 10-year tax break, but will consider the request. The credit union is investing about $250,000 to move its branch into a bigger building and to add two full-time workers at the branch.

DES MOINES Gov.- New Governor Chet Culver, sworn in on Friday, made a number of kep appointments, including the reappointment of James Forney as superintendent of credit unions. Forney has been serving in the position since 1988, when he was appointed by then-Gov. Terry Branstad. The Iowa regulator has chief jurisdiction over about 140 state chartered credit unions.

RICHARDSON, Texas – Texans CU announced yesterday it has acquired Curley Insurance Group, a 19-year-old group of insurance companies. Dallas-based Curly does business with more than 75 national and regional insurance carriers and provides business insurance, personal lines, professional liability, employee benefits, reinsurance and specialty lines. The $1.7 billion credit union will operate the insurance group under its Texans CUSO Partners subsidiary. Kevin Curly, president of Curly Group, will continue to run the operation.

WASHINGTON – CUNA made its annual contributions to the two major political parties, including the senate and congressional campaign committees, a total of $90,000 to both the Democrats and Republicans. CUNA makes the maximum allowable $15,000 a year to the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee, as well as the governors’ committees of each party, a total of $240,000 each campaign cycle. CUNA said its growing political action committee completed its most successful campaign cycle ever, having raised a new high of $3.7 million and contributed about $3.3 million to candidates and their parties. The increase in campaign funding through CUNA has made the credit union group the fourth most prolific trade association on Capitol Hill, in terms of campaign contributions. “All in all, we’re very pleased with the growth of our PAC,” said Trey Hawkins, political director for CUNA. “It’s a reflection of the people at the grassroots level around the country that most of our money was raised in small contributions.”

PHOENIX – Desert Schools FCU said yesterday it has introduced special no-interest bearing savings accounts for undocumented immigrants which will not require a social security number of other taxpayer identification. The only documentation required is a Matricula Consular ID card which is available from the Mexican consulate in most big U.S. cities. The savings accounts, which will be insured by NCUA, are aimed at providing mainstream financial services for unbanked immigrants, many who fear deportation if their finances can be easily traced. The new accounts were enabled by a legal opinion issued by NCUA last month. Desert Schools’ efforts to serve Arizona’s burgeoning Hispanic population, which has includes a series of financial education guides in Spanish, has earned it recognition in the credit union movement.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The former president and manager of Nor-Car FCU is scheduled to plead guilty to embezzling almost $2 million from the now-defunct institution in one of the biggest credit union corruption cases in years. Authorities said Michael Symons, 66, has plead guilty to looting the once-prosperous credit union through a variety of schemes, including the siphoning of cash from member deposits, and by clearing bounced checks for family members and friends. Charges against Symons come after Betty Jean Barachie, a former branch manager at the failed credit union and a self-professed ‘shopaholic’, pleaded guilty to stealing $2 million, which she used to embark on a crazed shopping spree to buy hundreds of pairs of shoes, coats, and other goods, including a $60,000 pool and 16 chain saws. Symons is also the target of a civil suit filed by NCUA, which also names his wife, Lucinda Sterling, as a defendant. Three other individuals involved are also named as defendants in the NCUA suit. Altogether, more than $3.4 million was skimmed from the $40 million credit union, forcing NCUA to take it over in 2003, the sell it off.

MARION, Ind. – Marion School Employees FCU shared its 70th anniversary with the community, with $55,000 in donations to seven community groups. The credit union chartered in 1936, agreed to match up to $70 for each donation in honor of 70 years. So members and employees raised $30,800 and the credit union provided 70% of that, or $24,200. The recipients of the donations were: the community foundations of Grant and Blackford counties; United Way of both counties; and scholarship funds for Indiana Wesleyan University, Taylor University and Ivy Tech Community College.

CALABASAS, Calif. – Angelo Mozilo celebrated the new year like he did the old year–by cashing in some of his lucrative stock options. Mozilo who made more than $200 million over the last two years on his Countrywide options, realized almost $2.3 million in gains last Thursday when he exercised 70,000 options at just $9.60 each, then sold the shares for $42.22, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mozilo earned almost $120 million in 2005 by exercising options, and another $85 million last year.

VANCOUVER, Wash. – Columbia CU said members elected seven new directors and five new members of its supervisory committee, successfully eliminating from its governance a group of dissident members who defeated the credit union’s bid to convert to a bank. The new directors are: Wayne Bigelow, Judith Chipman, John Cheek, Brianna Johnston, Michael England, H. Dexter Garey and Charles McDonald., and the new directors are John Bucholtz, Angie Rawson, Donald Harris, Bill Hughes and Lowell McDougal. Members voted in November to expel two directors and one member of the supervisory committee who founded Save Columbia CU to engineer the reversal of the credit union’s bank conversion three years ago. But repeated legal challenges by the dissidents since then had prompted several of the Save CCU members to abandon the group, including Cheek, and culminated in the rare member expulsions.

LAS VEGAS – Clark County CU paid its members almost $8 million yesterday—a bonus dividend. The funds, distributed based on the amount of interest paid or earned by each of the credit union’s 37,000 members last year, amounted to an average of $204 per member. One lucky member received $41,000. As big as the payout was, it was down significantly from last year when the credit union distributed a then-record $12 million dividend. That was exceeded this week when DFCU Financial, of Dearborn, Mich., paid its members a $17.5 million dividend.

ELGIN, Ill. – Lending Solutions said yesterday it is partnering with MortgageClick, a Woburn, Mass.-based credit union network, to allow the MortgageClick’s customers to offer loan origination, processing and closing services nationwide. The deal includes access to Lending Solutions’ National Loan Processing Center, a 24X7 call center. MortgageClick was organized by PrimeAlliance, a CUSO headed by Boeing Employees CU, and it provides online loan services to more than 200 credit unions.

LAS VEGAS – Visa USA, the world’s largest payments network, announced yesterday it is introducing a mobile platform that will allow consumers to tap into their bank and credit union accounts over the cell phones. The platform is designed to integrate the many competing mobile payments systems and services into a single user-friendly environment. The single platform will be used for mobile contactless payments, remote payments, person-to-person payments, and mobile coupons, as well as account management services, like viewing balances and bill payments. Visa has been working with numerous vendors and groups to facilitate the mobile system, including Nokia, NXP Semiconductors (formerly Philips), IBM, VeriSign, ViVOtech, the Mobile Payment Forum, the Near Field Communication Forum and Global Platform.