Links in “Credit Unions”

It’s time to mark your calendar with the schedule of NCUA Board meetings for 2016. The open meetings can be viewed through a livestream available through the NCUA website. NCUA also posts live updates during the meetings on Twitter. [10/28/15]

Yesterday, the Senate voted to approve the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which will facilitate the sharing of information concerning cybersecurity threats among companies and government agencies. It’s definitely a step in the right direction. However, there is more work to be done as bills are still pending that would create national data security standards. [10/28/15]

That is the essence of a letter submitted by CUNA to the Senate Banking Committee urging them to consider a number of measures that would relieve the regulatory burden on credit unions, so that they can devote more resources to serving their members. CUNA points to the strong average capital ratio for the industry and identifies a number of regulatory issues that, if addressed, would ultimately benefit consumers. [10/28/15]

A recent enforcement action triggered OFAC to issue guidance on the maintenance of false hit lists so that other institutions can avoid the costly mistake made by Harris Bank NA. The guidance provides a number of good recommendations, including ensuring that your false hit lists are updated every time there are updates to OFAC’s sanctions programs. [10/27/15]

ATMs rarely make profits for the credit union. Instead, they represent depreciating assets that are continuing sources of expenses in time and management costs. Outsourcing your ATMs can free up employee time, lower the credit union’s operational costs, and eliminate the expenses involved in handling upgrades and hardware replacement costs. [10/27/15]

During a NAFCU webcast yesterday, Larry Fazio, Director of Examination and Insurance for the NCUA, shared details about the Agency’s goals for the new RBC rule and how credit unions should prepare for the 2019 implementation date. He added that complex credit unions should, in 2017, start looking at their capital adequacy plans, their RBC capital ratio, and at how changes in their business plans may affect their capital ratios. [10/27/15]

Six large banks (Bank of America, BB&T, Capital One, JP Morgan Chase, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo) have announced the formation of a secure, real-time payments network that will be open to credit unions and banks of all sizes. By combining their collective digital payment network, clearXchange, and their fraud risk and authentication assets, Early Warning, the network will allow payments to any recipient to be available immediately. [10/27/15]

NCUA Director Rick Metsger announced that they have fast-tracked a proposed rule that would allow individual boards of directors of federal credit unions more options when making field of membership decisions. Metsger added that the changes are necessary in order to make the federal charter more comparable to state chartering rules. [10/26/15]

It could be. Fourth Corner Credit Union, the first credit union chartered to serve the marijuana industry, had filed suit against the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas for dragging its feet in approving a master account for the credit union, which is necessary for the credit union to open its doors. Now the reserve bank has filed a motion to dismiss the suit on the grounds that permitting the account would be tantamount to facilitating criminal activity. [10/26/15]

The Dodd-Frank Act required that the CFPB collect 17 pieces of data on the Loan Application Register (LAR). In its new HMDA rule, the CFPB decided to add 16 more data points to that list of items to be tracked and collected. Take a look here at the new comprehensive list. [10/26/15]