Firefighter Credit Union Newsroom

Join NCOFCU and TCT Risk Solutions to find out if your financial health falls within the benchmark goals. About this FREE Event  Date and Time; Tue, July 14, 2020 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT Add to Calendar Location; Online Event Register HERE Who should attend? CEO's, CFO's and Directors When you go to the Doctor, one of the first things to happen is the taking of your Vital Signs.  Health professionals know that these key Vital Signs provide an immediate picture of your body’s overall health. Monitoring your Vital Signs is an effective way to identify where your health in strong as well as where and when it requires attention. But it must be the right Vital Signs: for example, blood pressure, not hair length, or eye color. Just like people, Credit Unions have Vital Signs too. These vital signs indicate the overall financial health of the credit union. But, again, it must be the correct group of Vital Signs. Any indicator that is outside the healthy range me...

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States denied an appeal from the American Bankers Association to review the NCUA’s field of membership (FOM) rules. This decision by the Supreme Court brings to an end an almost four-year legal battle by the AMA against the NCUA. Shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision, CUNA, NAFCU and CUNA Mutual Group released a joint announcement stating the groups “have long supported the rule and the NCUA’s authority to provide oversight for the credit union industry.” “Today is a great day for anyone hoping to access the financial well-being afforded by credit unions,” said CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle. In denying the bankers’ lawsuit, the Court has established credit unions’ mission and structure as part of the fabric of America. In recognizing the NCUA’s right to oversee our system, the Court has also established a much-needed firewall from spurious attacks by the bankers. CUNA looks forward to working with the NCUA and credit unions to find new ...

NCUA to Delay Start of Phased Resumption of Onsite Operations ALEXANDRIA, Va. (June 26, 2020) – Due to the evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Credit Union administration is delaying the start of its phased resumption of onsite operations.  The agency’s leadership determined, in consultation with public health professionals, that a delay was warranted based on a variety of factors, including recent trends in public health data and administrative considerations. The NCUA’s top priority is ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of its staff while carrying out its mission. The agency will continue to monitor the pandemic’s developments and provide updated information on its plans to resume onsite examinations and operations as national, state, and local conditions permit.  The agency will continue to coordinate offsite examination and supervision efforts with state supervisory authorities.  Stakeholders that have any questions about this ...

HOUSTON– Three credit unions in Missouri and Kansas have outsourced their ATM operations to  Dolphin Debit , the full-service ATM management company. The company said the new clients, all smaller institutions, highlight its ability to work with clients of any size, from multi-billion-dollar credit unions to those with more modest assets and membership. Among the CUs moving to Dolphin Debit is  the $58-million Raytown-Lee’s Summit Community Credit Union in Raytown, Mo., which has two ATMs, one at each of its branches. The credit union decided to work with Dolphin when it was time for an upgrade, which was going to be expensive, the company said. “Those machines are costly,” said President Carrie West. “We compared the cost of having to buy machines every five to seven years and it wasn’t cost-effective to keep doing that.” Compliance was another issue, according to West, as well as the headaches of having to devote staff time to machines. “Now a...

Akron Fire Police Credit Union joins Finance Responders .com MBL Referral Program Akron, OH – CU First Responders Finance (CUFR) is excited to announce that Akron Fire Police Credit Union (AFPCU) has joined our business loan referral program. AFPCU is looking forward to offering a full range of products and services tailored to municipal and volunteer fire departments and first responder businesses. FinanceResponders.com provides the avenue for AFPCU to originate direct commercial real estate, business loans and generate non-interest income. The Referral Credit Union (RCU) program provides a structured method to refer their business and commercial loans to lead lenders in the program. CUFR provides the member business lending expertise! “Additionally, there is an opportunity to sell a portion of the loan back to the referring credit union. Everyone prospers by working together! The referring credit union gets business loans on their books and the lead lender earns poi...

Letter to Credit Unions (20-CU-20) Phased Approach to On-site Operations Dear Boards of Directors and Chief Executive Officers: After conducting a workforce readiness survey, obtaining guidance from appropriate federal agencies, and partnering with a public health firm retained to advise the agency on COVID-19-related matters, the NCUA developed a multi-phase transition plan for the resumption of its on-site operations and is now preparing to implement that plan. The phased transition plan provides a framework for how and when staff resumes an on-site presence at both NCUA offices and credit unions. The NCUA’s top priority is that of ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of its staff while executing the agency’s mission. The transition plan may begin as early as Monday, July 6, 2020, and has built-in flexibility if a later implementation date is necessary. In the transition plan’s first phase, we may begin conducting voluntary on-site examinations. We will communicate spec...

NEW YORK–A new survey of credit union members over the age of 65 has found more than half say their children chose not to do business at their parents’ credit union. The survey, conducted by Access Softek, Inc., a provider of online and mobile banking software, included more than 500 credit union members over the age of 65 who have adult children. The company said the goal of the research was to better understand how credit union membership changes generationally and the role family plays in that change. The survey, conducted by Google Surveys between May 22-29, 2020, found 60% of respondents had children that chose not to bank at their parent’s credit union. The company did not say whether the children of CU members now do their banking with a different credit union. “In addition to seeing their children choose different institutions, despite a typically long-term relationship with their credit union, only 9% of respondents had recommended their credit union to their ...

The Federal Reserve’s Main Street Lending Program Can Help Eligible Businesses through the COVID-19 Pandemic Dear Boards of Directors and Chief Executive Officers: The Federal Reserve System’s Main Street Lending Program is designed to help credit flow to small and medium-sized businesses that were in sound financial condition before the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, but now need loans to help maintain their operations until they have recovered from, or adapted to, the impacts of the pandemic. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston administers the Main Street Lending Program. The Bank uses a special purpose vehicle to purchase loan participations from eligible lenders across the U.S. The NCUA encourages credit unions to participate in this program, if appropriate. Loans originated under the program have several features that will help businesses facing challenges. The program offers 5-year loans, with floating rates, and principal and interest payments deferred to assist busin...

By Gary Walston When an emergency strikes – whether a natural calamity or a unique situation like we have been dealing with in the COVID-19 pandemic – a credit union quickly goes into disaster mode. The priorities become crystal clear: keep your personnel and your facilities safe and secure and continue to serve your members as best you can while ensuring their safety as well. All your attention becomes focused on overcoming the major obstacles to maintaining member service. There isn’t sufficient time to worry about too many details, whether it is a flood or hurricane where the dislocation is geographically limited and can be measured in days or weeks, or whether it is a pandemic where there is wide, ongoing disruption that lasts for months. The big picture has to be paramount. These are the times – when dealing with staff shortages, branch inaccessibility, and other challenges – that a credit union can benefit most from having outsourced some of its functions, such a...

The White House announced on Monday that President Trump will name Kyle Hauptman to the NCUA Board. Hauptman is currently Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) economic advisor as well as the Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Policy. Board member J. Mark McWatters, whose term expired last August, had said he would remain on the Board until a replacement was named. McWatters is one of two Republicans serving on the Board – the other is Chairman Rodney Hood. According to a statement from the White House, prior to joining Senator Cotton’s office, Mr. Hauptman worked on the 2016 Presidential Transition Team. And served on the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s Advisory Committee for Small and Emerging Companies from 2015-2016. Previously, Mr. Hauptman was a fixed-income trader in Tokyo, New York City, and Sydney, Australia. He earned his MBA from Columbia University and his B.A. from UCLA. It is unclear when Hauptman’s nomination will be discu...

For credit unions, first mortgages are up, auto loans are down and commercial loans have plummeted since the coronavirus hit the U.S. economy. CUNA released its updated economic forecast on Thursday with data collected through April and according to CUNA Senior Economist Jordan van Rijn, first mortgages continued to be at least one bit of good news for the credit union industry with a growth of 7.2%. In  a video update, van Rijn said  while that is down from the 9.4% growth seen at this time last year, “Credit unions are continuing to find ways to do mortgages particularly in this environment of extremely low-interest rates – a lot of people are asking for mortgages.” He also made a point to say that CUNA has seen a lot of bank customers come over to credit unions to refinance. HELOCs and second mortgages are down 2.1% and commercial loans are down 8.3%, according to the latest CUNA survey data. “Overall, the monthly credit union estimates show that credit union loan gr...

Tobler is a retired battalion chief of the Albany Fire Department. During his career, he was also a loan officer and eventually became CEO of Albany Firemen’s FCU. Upon his retirement from the credit union in 2018, Tobler was elected chairman of the board, where he still assumes those duties to date. He was called upon by the Association to assist a small credit union in 2008 that lost its manager and was struggling. That credit union is still serving its members today. Tobler was elected director of the Association’s board and served 12 years until 2019. He has been serving on the Association’s Capital Chapter Council since 1990, where he has held multiple positions, including Chapter President. He chaired the Association’s awards committee and also served on the CUNA award committee. Tobler also is a founding member of the National Council of Firefighter Credit Unions, where he served as the first chairman for six years. He formed the Albany Firefighters Museum in 2014 and...

      Facebook Is Still King Are you using it to market your auto loans?   If you’ve consumed news this week, you might think that with all the talk about Twitter, it is the most visited website in the world.  It's far from it. According to ComScore ranking it ranks No. 20 on of the top 50 most visited websites. It averages  166 million daily active users , compared to  229 million  for Snapchat, 500 million for Instagram or  1.66 billion  for the most popular social network, Fac...