Links in “Credit Unions”

Washington's $1.5 billion Numerica CU opens up how it is managing the risks associated with opening accounts for as many as 100 marijuana business accounts. Issues range from how to deal with smelly money to the 30-40% increase in SAR and CTR filings. [10/19/15]

New Jersey's Helping Other People Excel Federal Credit Union, with $290,000 in assets and 96 members, was placed into conservatorship. Two Florida men who controlled the credit union have been accused of running a phony company to operate an unlicensed Bitcoin exchange to launder money. [10/19/15]

The risks associated with Marketing Service Agreements may have just spiked, a spike we can attribute to a recent CFPB compliance bulletin. AffirmX’s Mike Stottlemyer helps decipher the warnings found in the bulletin. [10/16/15]

Effective immediately, all community charter applications submitted by federally chartered credit unions will be approved by the Office of Consumer Protection (OCP), rather than by the NCUA Board. The expectation is that this could trim about 2 months from the application approval process. [10/16/15]

The changes to Regulation C that implement the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act will require credit unions and other financial institutions to collect more data on a larger scope of mortgage loan products, including home equity lines of credit. The credit union trades associations had lobbied hard to have credit unions excluded from the burdensome expanded data collection requirements, but the CFPB did not choose to go in that direction. [10/16/15]

NCUA says that if the final RBC rule was to take effect today that only 16 credit unions would have to raise capital or reduce risk in order to comply. Chairman Matz pointed out that those 16 credit unions hold assets of $10 billion, which is about the same size as the share insurance fund. She added that if one of those credit unions failed the impact on all credit unions would be significant. [10/16/15]

After 2,100 comment letters, several town hall meetings, pressure from Congress to delay finalization, the NCUA Board voted yesterday to approve a final rule on risk-based capital that reflects only minor changes from the proposed RBC2.  The final rule reduces the risk weighting for most investments in CUSOS and for charitable donation accounts to 100%.  The final rule is effective 1/1/19. [10/16/15]

According to FinCEN, the standout trend in 2014 SAR filings was the large increase in the use of funnel accounts for money laundering purposes.  A funnel account is an account that receives multiple cash deposits, often in amounts below the cash-reporting threshold, and from which funds are withdrawn in a different geographic area with little time between deposits and withdrawals. [10/15/15]

The Internet of Things (IoT) could provide significant marketing opportunities, but also bring security risks to credit unions. IoT, which revolves around machine-to-machine communications, could be a game changer for how people live, shop, and bank by transforming big data into actionable information. However, these innovations can also create security, privacy, and system risks. [10/15/15]

In a last minute push, Jeb Hensarling, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, has sent a strongly-worded letter to NCUA Chair Debbie Matz  urging her to delay today’s scheduled vote on a final risk-based capital rule. Hensarling referenced pending legislation in the House that would require NCUA to conduct an impact study before finalizing the rule and additional research on the agency’s legal authority to finalize and enforce RBC2. [10/15/15]