ATLANTA – The Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta announced yesterday it will pay its members a fourth quarter dividend of 5.90%, up from 4.60% paid for the fourth quarter last year. The dividend will be credited to members accounts on January 2. The dividend will be paid to the Atlanta Bank’s 1,200 member institutions, including 135 credit unions.

SAN FRANCISCO – The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco announced yesterday it has awarded $31.9 million in affordable housing grants, including $3.1 million to four California credit unions. The awards include $2.6 million to Mission FCU which will sponsor four affordable rental projects in San Diego and nearby Poway. Also AEA FCU received $300,000 to sponsor a 20-unit project in San Luis; and Santa Cruz Community CU won $227,000 to sponsor a mobile home project in Santa Cruz. The San Francisco Bank also awarded California Congresswoman Maxine Waters its ‘Friends of Affordable Housing’ award for her work in expanding affordable housing opportunities for California residents. Waters will be chair of the House Financial Services subcommittee on Housing in the next Congress.

PEORIA, Ill. – Members of CEFCU got some extra help paying for Christmas presents this year with an extraordinary dividend of $6 million from their credit union. The early Christmas present was deposited in members accounts on Monday. The bonus payout was divided equally between savers–$3 million, based on the amount of dividends received by November 30-- and borrowers–$3 million, based on the amount of interest paid. The $3 billion credit union, originally known as Caterpillar Employees FCU, has paid out more than $21 million in extraordinary dividends since 2000.

WALL STREET – Morgan Stanley confirmed long-whispered rumors today and announced this morning it will spin off its Discover cards division in an initial public offering some time next year, positioning the unit to better compete with MasterCard and Visa USA in the payments arena. Discover carved out a major slice in the credit union market last year with its acquisition of Pulse EFT, which provides payments services for more than 1,200 credit unions. The spin-off will allow Discover to better focus on its core electronic payments business, in light of last year’s Supreme Court ruling preventing MasterCard and Visa from barring its card issuers from offering competing cards, like Discover of American Express. Morgan Stanley executives said they see the timing of the spin-off as critical, in light of the doubling of MasterCard’s share price since its IPO last May, and a planned IPO by Visa sometime next year.

JOHNSON CITY, N.Y. – Walter Grabowski, who helped charter one of more than two dozen IBM employees credit unions–which grew to become a billion-dollar credit union–passed away last week at 88. Grabowski helped organize what is now Visions FCU by convincing dock workers and assembly line workers at IBM, where he worked for 38 years as a journeyman model maker, to pool their savings. The founders started out by collecting 25 cents and 50 cents from IBM workers. Grabowski also served on the board of the credit union for many years.

DALLAS – TNB Card Services said yesterday it acquired credit card portfolios from five credit unions in Missouri, Michigan and Texas. The selling credit unions are: Heart ‘O Texas CU, Waco, Texas; Mountain Star FCU, El Paso, Texas; Kensington Valley Community CU, Highland, Mich; Southpointe CU, St. Louis, Mo; and Jeffco CU, Festus, Mo. TNB is a subsidiary of credit union-owned Town North Bank.

WARREN, Mich. – Member Driven Technologies, a CUSO owned by area credit unions, announced yesterday it has signed with Digital Resolve to offer the company’s Fraud Analyst risk-based authentication platform to its credit union customers. Member Driven Technologies will use Digital Resolve’s Zero Impact deployment option, which allows for application independent deployment of multifactor authentication. Fraud Analyst offer 360 degree fraud protection–from new account opening and enrollment, to login authentication to high-risk transactions.

HARTFORD, Ct. – American Eagle FCU reported yesterday it has signed with Cyveillance to implement the company’s anti-phishing early warning security system. Cyveillance will alert the credit union in real time when its Internet monitoring technology detects a potential phishing attack. The system will then take corrective action and take the site phishing sites down. American Eagle is the largest community credit union in Connecticut with more than $900 million in assets, 96,000 members and 16 retail branches.

TILLIMOOK, Ore. – TLC FCU said yesterday it has installed the branch capture Check 21 system from Integrated Media Management. The $86 million credit union was the beta test site for this technology that captures check images at the branch and transports them electronically to their main location and then to the Federal Reserve, eliminating transportation costs, saving time and reducing the potential for lost checks. IMM's Check 21 solution has been implemented in all five of TLC FCU's branches, which are reporting an 85 percent pass rate on the checks that are scanned, leaving only 15 percent that need to have the amounts entered manually.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A man suspected of an armed robbery yesterday at Tennessee Members First CU was arrested riding in the back of a limousine on I-75 headed out of state. The robber made his getaway from the credit union on foot, then was spotted a short while later at a local convenience store. Police followed the suspect after he was seen getting into the limo. Evidence linking him to the hold-up was recovered in the limo.

WASHINGTON – Former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Franklin Raines and two top lieutenants were charged with fraud in a civil suit filed yesterday by federal regulators in connection with the multi-billion dollar accounting scandal that has roiled the secondary mortgage market giant for the past three years. The suit, filed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, seeks fines and the returns of millions of dollars in bonuses paid to Raines and former chief financial officer Timothy Howard and former controller Leanne Spencer. Raines and Howard were fired two years ago as the scandal was festering, when evidence emerged that Fannie cooked the books to please Wall Street analysts and to qualify top executives for millions of dollars in bonuses.

RICHMOND, Va. – Shares in armored cash carrier Brinks Co. hit a new high yesterday, for the second trading day in a row, after another major investor supported suggestions that the company explore strategic alternatives like a sale, leveraged buyout or break-up. MMI Investments, which holds an 8.1% stake in Brinks, said the value of the company could be as much as $70 a share, almost 10% more than yesterday’s closing price on the New York Stock Exchange of $63.70. MMI’s proposal comes after a private equity fund, Pirate Capital, which holds about 8.5% of Brinks shares, called for the sale of the company. Brinks shares closed up 6% yesterday.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA reported it made more than $1.2 million in low-interest loans from its Community Development Revolving Loan Fund. The recipients included: Mountain West FCU, Butte, Mont. ($300,000); Tex Dot WF CU, Wichita Falls, Texas ($200,000); Fannin CU Bonham, Texas ($200,000); Winthrop CU, Rock Hill, S.C. ($100,000); U-1st Community FCU, Carlsbad, N.M. ($100,000) and FAB Church CU, Savannah, Ga. ($15,000). NCUA also reported it increased the maximum grant available for the technical assistance portion of the community development program from $3,500 to $5,000.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Nationwide Bank said yesterday it has received approval from the federal Office of Thrift Supervision for its acquisition of Nationwide FCU and plans to use the credit union to launch its national savings bank on Jan. 2. Under the unusual deal, the $540 million credit union converted to a mutual savings bank, then Nationwide Bank, a shell thrift created by Nationwide Insurance, paid the credit union members $29 million for their shares, the first time a credit union has been acquired for a payment to members. The new thrift will operate out of the credit union’s offices in the insurer’s Columbus headquarters and a branch in nearby Dublin, Ohio.

NEW YORK – Mayor Michael Bloomberg used the backdrop of a leading community development credit union yesterday to unveil a $150 million economic empowerment program for New York City. The first of 30 programs to be launched will be a citywide Office of Financial Empowerment to educate, empower and protect low income workers, according to the Mayor, who made the announcement at Lower East Side People’s FCU, New York’s largest CDCU. “We are honored to host the Mayor at this historic event, and excited by the commitment of the City of New York to bring economic opportunity to those who have never had it before,” said Linda Levy, CEO of the credit union, which serves the immigrant community and others in the city’s underserved population. CDCUs are expected to partner with the city’s Commission for Economic Opportunity on the program, which will include building assets and savings for the working poor through basic bank account products, Individual Development Accounts and the Earned Income Tax Credit, all area in which the city’s CDCUs have taken the lead.

DETROIT, Mich.–Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against DFCU Financial took a huge blow Friday when a judge denied their request for access to records related to their CU’s ill-fated conversion attempt and would not rule on its motion to force a special meeting for the purpose of a recall of the board. Longtime members Margaret Blohm, Ray Ward and Richard Sly sued their CU in an attempt to force the special meeting, gain access to records related to the conversion attempt, and keep the $1.8-billion financial institution from spending corporate funds to solicit members on its own behalf. At the heart of the lawsuit filed in the Wayne County 3rd Circuit Court, is the question as to who is responsible for enforcing a credit union’s bylaws. DFCU Owners United, in accordance with the credit union’s bylaws, submitted a petition with enough signatures on it to call the special meeting to recall the board, but the credit union has refused to hold the meeting. Without access to the CU’s records related to the conversion attempt, it will be difficult for the group to document any wrongdoing on the part of the current board members before voting in the board elections, set for Feb. 15. The members’ group that formed to oppose the conversion, DFCU Owners United, has put together a slate of candidates to run against the candidates that have been endorsed by the existing board.

DETROIT, Mich.–Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against DFCU Financial took a huge blow Friday when a judge denied their request for access to records related to their CU’s ill-fated conversion attempt and would not rule on its motion to force a special meeting for the purpose of a recall of the board. Longtime members Margaret Blohm, Ray Ward and Richard Sly sued their CU in an attempt to force the special meeting, gain access to records related to the conversion attempt, and keep the $1.8-billion financial institution from spending corporate funds to solicit members on its own behalf. At the heart of the lawsuit filed in the Wayne County 3rd Circuit Court, is the question as to who is responsible for enforcing a credit union’s bylaws. DFCU Owners United, in accordance with the credit union’s bylaws, submitted a petition with enough signatures on it to call the special meeting to recall the board, but the credit union has refused to hold the meeting. Without access to the CU’s records related to the conversion attempt, it will be difficult for the group to document any wrongdoing on the part of the current board members before voting in the board elections, set for Feb. 15. The members’ group that formed to oppose the conversion, DFCU Owners United, has put together a slate of candidates to run against the candidates that have been endorsed by the existing board.

ATM maker Diebold has signed with SecuGen to implement the company's Hamster III ISB fingerprint reader for use in the company's IdentiCenter biometric identity fraud system.

DEARBORN, Mich. - As DFCU Financial officials were preparing for the latest round in a suit against the credit union over its ill-fated conversion, CU officials announced they would issue one of the largest dividends in credit union history-$17.5 million.

"What's our next marketing campaign and how will it be done?" Even credit unions with comprehensive marketing plans can sometimes find themselves scratching their heads with this question at times. After that question is finally answered, the challenge then becomes putting together a marketing campaign on time and within budget.