Lending

SEATTLE – BECU is the latest credit union to enter the private student loan market through CU Student Choice, part of the $9 billion credit union’s new effort to reach the state’s college campuses.

MEDFORD, Ore. – Rogue FCU plans to expand its free foreclosure-prevention and assistance program statewide.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA’s projections of increased losses on natural person credit unions are apparently being based on a stress test conducted recently on the National CU Share Insurance Fund that uses new data showing far greater exposure of credit unions to exotic mortgages, especially Interest Only and Payment Option loans, among other things.

RESTON, Va. – Rates for 30-year mortgages back this week after soaring to seven-month highs last week, according to Freddie Mac.

MINNEAPOLIS – Wolters Kluwer Financial Services said yesterday it has formed a new indirect lending unit to better help credit unions in this area.

ANAHEIM, Calif. – In an additional sign of the times, another church, the tenth since 2007, has defaulted on a loan from Evangelical Christian CU, the lender to more than 1,000 ministries across the country.

FREMONT, Ohio – Fremont FCU is sponsoring a car show this Saturday in downtown Fremont.

NEWARK, N.J. – Even as U.S. Mortgage Owner Michael McGrath was pleading guilty to the unauthorized sale of $140 million in credit union mortgages to Fannie Mae, the government-controlled mortgage giant was refusing to give the mortgages back to the aggrieved credit unions.

MT. LAUREL, N.J. – PHH Corp. said dissident shareholders Pennant Capital, a hedge fund that has acquired almost 10% of the company’s shares, won two seats on the PHH board last week, turning both the company’s Chairman A.B. Krongard and its CEO Terence Edwards away.

FAIRFIELD, Calif. – The Fairfield Housing Authority announced a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher home ownership sale that was financed by Travis CU.

NEWARK, N.J. – Hours after last week’s guilty plea in the $140 million fraud at U.S. Mortgage Corp., insurers for the bankrupt mortgage company moved to cancel the company’s surety bond, which would foreclose one potential source of recompense for some 30 credit unions victimized in the biggest fraud ever to hit the industry.

MADISON, Wis. — Educators CU may soon learn that it will not have to divest its used-car-sales business.

LANSING, Mich. — The economy and the automaker bankruptcies haven't slowed Invest in America, which posted its highest monthly sales for GM and Chrysler in May.

NEWARK, N.J. — Michael McGrath, the founder and owner of U.S. Mortgage and its CU National Corp., was expected to plead guilty in federal court here late last week to bank fraud and conspiracy charges in what is growing into one of the biggest financial scandals ever to hit credit unions.

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Addison Avenue FCU has introduced low-rate loans to finance solar power home projects through SunPower Corp.

McLEAN,Va. – Home loan rates continue to rise for the third straight week, to their highest in eight months, depressing loan demand along the way.

NEWARK, N.J. – The founder and owner of U.S. Mortgage Corp. pleaded guilty yesterday to a massive mortgage fraud that siphoned almost $140 in funds from almost 30 credit union customers of the company’s CU National Mortgage unit.

The federal regulator for credit unions has allowed them to make modifications to home loans in which the lender shares in any appreciation of the property in exchange for lowering principal.