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Credit Union Times

OCTOBER 14, 2015 | VOL. 26 | NO. 37 | CUTIMES.COM

1990 2015

CREDIT UNION TIMES

FOCUSREPORT:

MERGERS

Most credit union mergers are a win-win for both parties involved, but behind the scenes, executives often face difficult decisions. Plus, merging institutions must take extra care to keep their data secure throughout the process.

Find out more in this Focus Report. Y8

Outsourcing Mortgage Lending Tasks

To adjust to new regulations, credit unions must tweak their processes. Y12

Trailblazer

40 Below

LSCU’s Jared Ross is a leader in advocacy efforts. Y6

Must Reads

CUTIMES25

Military CU Duty

On Aug. 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. That event set into motion 25 years of war and conflicts that have kept credit unions that serve the military busy providing specialized services to their members.

Arty Arteaga, president/CEO of the Defense Credit Union Council, served in active duty with the Army during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He also served as commander of the U.S. Army Financial Command.

Because of his experience, he already knew what was expected of credit unions when he was recruited to run the DCUC in March 2000.

And then Americans were attacked on U.S. soil on Sept. 11, 2001.

“We were co-located with
CUNA on 8th Street at the time,”
Arteaga recalled. “Thankfully,
I knew enough about navigat-
ing [Washington D.C.] to quick-
ly make my way across the Key
Bridge to I-66 and get out of the
After a couple of days off,
Arteaga and his staff were back
in the DCUC office putting to-
gether guidance for member
credit unions. The first order of
business was putting together
a readiness checklist for credit
unions as their members pre-
pared to deploy to Iraq and later
Afghanistan and other locations
around the world in the Y17
redit unions should
embrace immi-
grants as members
and not be dissuad-
ed by negative political rhetoric
associated with them, according
to executives familiar with the de-
mographic.
“If there were one thing I wish
more credit unions knew about
working with immigrants, it
would be that do-
ing so is not that
scary or risky,” Wi-
nona Nava, presi-
dent/CEO for
the $137 million,

17,000-member
Guadalupe Credit
Union, said. “We serve immi-
grant members every day. We do
so within regulations and without
sharply higher losses from them
than from any other members.”
NCUA data backed up her re-
port. According to the agency, the
Santa Fe, N.M.-based cooperative
closed June 2015 with a net worth
ratio of 10.64%, slightly below the
peer average of 10.90%, but with
a return on assets ratio of 1.22%,
more than double the 0.57% re-
ported by its peers.
Immigrants Present Opportunities

DAVID MORRISON dmorrison@cutimes.com

Y18

EMERGING MARKETS

The Rundown

Y Immigrant members are not difficult to recruit or serve.

Y Serving immigrant communities can help spare them from predatory lenders.

Y New Mexico credit unions posted numbers that support immigrant service.

New
Platform
Unites
CDCUs
DAVID MORRISON
dmorrison@cutimes.com

A new common processing platform will accommodate ongoing innovation, facilitate collaboration and enable service sharing for community development credit unions, those involved in the project said.

On Sept. 29, the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions announced it signed a deal with software development CUSO EPL Inc. to produce CU Impact, the new processing platform.

“This is the next chapter in the
evolution of community develop-
ment credit unions,” Federation
President/CEO Cathie Mahon
said when the organizations an-
nounced the deal. “With the abil-
ity to integrate new products and
services into the core data system
in an affordable and timely man-
ner, CDCUs will be able to remain
nimble and respond rapidly to
community needs.”
The federation said CU Impact
will offer CDCUs three core ben-
efits to improve their current core
processing technology and tailor
it to their individual missions.