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Gadgetwise Blog: Tip of the Week: Customizing Folder Previews

If you would prefer to give your desktop folders a more distinctive look so you can find certain ones more easily, you can choose a specific picture to peep out of each folder instead **** Gadgetwise Blog: Tip of the Week: Customizing Folder Previews:

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Sunday Reading - Year of the Fire Horse

        Year of the Fire Horse   Lunar New Year celebrations kick off  tomorrow, ushering in the Year of the Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac. The 15-day festivities, observed by billions worldwide, start with the new moon and end with the Lantern Festival. China anticipates a record 9.5 billion trips during the 40-day travel rush around the holiday, the world’s largest annual human migration. The horse is the seventh animal in the 12-year zodiac cycle and symbolizes energy, independence, and ambition. Those born in horse years are seen as dynamic, courageous, and charismatic. Many see the Year of the Fire Horse as a time to tak...
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The NCOFCU Podcast: Clear Insight. No Jargon.

Every week, we cover the latest trends and developments within the credit union industry. At NCOFCU, we are dedicated to providing you with insightful discussions that cut through the clutter. Our podcast features expert opinions, in-depth analyses, and an exploration of the challenges and opportunities that credit unions, directors, and staff face today. Join us as we navigate the evolving industry and empower associations with the knowledge they need to thrive. https://ceohp.podbean.com/ ================================================= Remember, you're not alone with  NCOFCU.org Join/Upgrade Check out some of NCOFCU's additional features: First Responder Credit Union Academy Financial Literacy Podcasts YouTube Mini's Blog Job Board
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Eight Credit Unions Pay $42 Million in Special Dividends to 1.1 Million Members

  By  Jim DuPlessis   | January 05, 2026 at 04:00 PM So far this season, CU Times has tallied 19 credit unions, which have announced $160.3 million in special dividends for members.       Eight more credit unions have reported special dividends, paying their 1.1 million members $42.1 million in December and January. The bulk of the dividends came from Police and Fire Federal Credit Union of Philadelphia and Eastman Credit Union of Kingsport, Tenn., which each announced $16 million in rewards approved by their boards. The late January payout from Eastman ($9.7 billion, 356,492 members) will bring its total special dividends to $225 million since 1998. A news release from the credit union said “the Extraordinary Dividend is never guaranteed, but the strong financial performance of ECU in 2025 enabled the Board of Directors to approve this year’s $16 million payout.” Eastman’s $16 million payout represents about $47 per member and 19 basis points of its averag...
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Sunday Reading - Budweiser 101

Draft Horses   Budweiser 101 Perhaps best known for its Super Bowl Clydesdale ads, Budweiser   is among the world’s most popular beer brands. It was among the first beers to achieve national distribution in the late 19th century, thanks to its revolutionary refrigeration and pasteurization techniques, setting the stage for the modern US beer industry.   Founded in the 1850s as the “Bavarian Brewery,” the company was acquired in 1860 by Eberhard Anheuser. He sold half of it to his son-in-law,  Adolphus Busch ,   in 1869, forming the partnership that would become Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, Missouri.   In the 1870s, Carl Conrad , a St. Louis distributor, traveled through a Bohemian town called “Budweis” in German and drank a pale lager. Upon returning home, he worked with Anheuser-Busch to brew its own light lager, marketing it under the ...
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Potential Changes to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act

Written by Steve Van Beek NAFCU On the Tuesday after Memorial Day, I thought it was fitting to discuss some movement on Capitol Hill regarding proposed extensions to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). As reported in the NAFCU Today , the House passed an Amendment offered by Elijah Cummings (D-MD) to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (which also passed the House in recent weeks).  The Amendment would provide additional protections to servicemembers.  The additional protections include: Extending post-service mortgage protection from nine months to 12 months; Extending certain SCRA protections to surviving spouses; Extending SCRA protections to all totally disabled veterans leaving the military; Requiring each financial institution - including credit unions - to designate a SCRA compliance officer; and Requiring institutions over $10 billion in assets to maintain a toll-free number for SCRA issues. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate. ...
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Why First Responder Credit Unions Are Built to Adopt Blockchain Faster

  For years, blockchain in financial services lived mostly in the world of experimentation—proofs of concept, pilot programs, and innovation labs that rarely touched day-to-day operations. That era is ending. Today, blockchain adoption is moving from experimentation to scale. Across payments, capital markets, and banking infrastructure, financial institutions are beginning to operate on new rails—powered by tokenized money, programmable assets, and always-on settlement models. For credit unions serving first responders, this shift presents not just a technology opportunity, but a strategic one. Blockchain Is Becoming Core Infrastructure The most important change isn’t the technology itself—it’s how it’s being used. Blockchain is no longer about testing what might work. It’s increasingly being deployed as infrastructure to solve long-standing problems in financial services, including slow settlement, trapped liquidity, manual reconciliation, and limited operating hours. Cr...
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No New Pennies, New Rules: Treasury Sets Guidance For Cash Transactions

WASHINGTON—For credit unions and their members, the penny’s long goodbye is no longer theoretical—it’s operational. Just before Christmas the U.S. Treasury quietly released a detailed set of  Penny Production Cessation FAQs,  confirming that the federal government has stopped manufacturing new pennies and laying out how businesses, financial institutions, and consumers should prepare as the coin gradually slips out of everyday use. The move reflects a basic math problem: It now costs 3.69 cents to produce a single penny, nearly triple its cost a decade ago. Treasury estimates halting production will save taxpayers $56 million annually, while acknowledging that the coin’s purchasing power—and relevance—has steadily eroded in an economy dominated by electronic payments. What Changes At The Register—And What Doesn’t Despite the halt in production, pennies are not being eliminated. Roughly 114 billion pennies remain in circulation, and the Federal Reserve will continue recirculati...
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7 Things to Do (And Avoid) with SMS/Text in Credit Union Marketing

By not using SMS text messaging for marketing, you are missing a channel with a 98% open rate and a rapid response rate. Consumers love the convenience and are open to receiving personalized and relevant texts from their bank and credit union. Naturally there are some caveats to be aware of. Here are seven pointers. Are you content to have your customers take 90 minutes to respond back to a communication you’ve sent, or would 90 seconds be better? That’s the difference in average response times between email and SMS text. Then there is the open rate: SMS texts have high open rates — up to 98%, according to Gartner and 82% by another source. The average open rate of email is around 20%. If you send an email with a link to a survey to find out what a consumer thinks about the virtual meeting with a lending officer they just had, it may linger in the consumers’ inbox for days, at which point the experience is no longer top-of-mind or the consumer decides to simply delete the ...
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Leasing Set To Surge In 2026?—Credit Unions May Miss Out If They Don’t Move

  CINCINNATI—As credit unions look to revive auto lending in 2026 after a sluggish year, one lending tool may become indispensable: vehicle leasing. With new-car prices still historically high, negative equity rising, and manufacturers fighting for market share, leasing is poised for a major rebound this year—and credit unions that remain on the sidelines risk losing out on strong, recurring loan volume. That’s the message from Scot Hall, executive vice president at  Swapalease.com , who says the economic and market dynamics heading into 2026 are aligning in ways that make leasing not only attractive, but essential. “Prices are up and they’re not coming down anytime soon,” Hall said, noting that inflation, tariffs, supply volatility, and chip-related uncertainty continue to push vehicle pricing higher. “Leasing is a great way to combat that. It’s also a great way to get somebody out of negative equity in a relatively short period of time.” Market Conditions Are Setting the Sta...
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