Trusted News for Credit Union Leaders
Credit Union Times
DECEMBER 11, 2019 | VOL. 30 | NO. 42 | CUTIMES.COM
s credit union officials reviewed the
agency’s proposed
2020 budget, they delivered a vehement message to the
agency board: They do not want
or need consumer protection
examinations.
Board Member Todd Harper,
the panel’s lone Democrat, has
proposed adding three new staff
members at the agency to help
develop a consumer protection
examination.
Harper has said other federal
banking regulators have such
tests. Other regulators schedule risk-focused consumer
protection reviews
and assign a separate consumer
compliance rating, according to
Harper.
He also has said the NCUA’s
policy differs from the congres-sionally-mandated FFIEC. That
council aims to develop uniform
standards for financial regulators.
“For more than three decades,
the NCUA has focused its examination program primarily on
safety and soundness reviews,”
Harper said when he asked commenters on the agency’s proposed
2020 budget to weigh in on his
proposal. “This policy worked
well when the NCUA over-
Must Reads
INVESTMENTS
‘Pensionize’ 401(k)s and IRAs
In a world of defined contributions, American workers have
three challenges – inadequate
savings, leakage (or loans/early
withdrawals) tied to their retirement accounts and the need for
retirement income. Plus, just half
of all DC plans offer a way for
investors to transform balances
into periodic retirement income,
with only one in five offering
guaranteed lifetime payouts.
This situation prompted Steve
Vernon of the Stanford Center on Longevity, Wade Pfau of
The American College of Financial Services and researcher Joe
Tomlinson to explore and devise solutions to “pensionize”
retirement plans. Their work,
first published last year and then
updated this year, finds that only
one-third of workers contact financial advisors, and most lack
the necessary skills to convert
savings into retirement income
and typically have short planning horizons.
But research from the Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL)
and Society of Actuaries (SOA)
has found a “straightforward retirement strategy,” according to
the three authors. “Choosing a
specific solution that will help
workers generate retirement income requires them to make
informed tradeoffs between potentially competing goals,” they
explained, such as “maximizing
lifetime income; providing access to savings (liquidity); planning for bequests;
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS
Pot, Wearables Drive Issues
Over the years, the once separate
worlds of property & casualty
insurance and employee benefits have, if not collided, at least
moved closer together. As con
solidation reshapes the market,
it’s become more common for
firms to sell both books of business, and innovations and strategies from one area have often
bled into the other.
In this new reality, brokers on
both sides re keeping an eye on
new ideas, regardless of which
market adopts them first. Here
are so areas of the P&C world
that benefits agents are watching
carefully.
Benefits Abstain From
Marijuana
The legal issues around marijuana have probably never been
more complicated. Cannabis
products are legal in some states
and illegal in others, with differ-ing types of legality for medical
usage. The federal government
currently still classifies mari
juana as a Schedule 1 drug but
has so far declined to prosecute
companies in states that have l
galized commercial marijuana
businesses. The uncertainty and
potential legal liability is keeping
most benefits carriers and health
plans on the sidelines for now as
the marijuana industry contin
ues to grow.
The insurance world, however,
is a different story. The legal
ization of marijuana in certain
states has created Y15
FOCUSREPORT:
INNOVATIVE
THINKING
To compete in the financial services marketplace in
2020 and beyond, CUs must imagine and implement
new methods, ideas and products. Learn how a new
alliance is helping drive innovation in the CU industry
in this Focus Report. Y6
Technology-Induced
Anxiety
Don’t let it
happen to your
members. Y10
A New
Mindset for
Growth
Gain innovation
inspiration for
2020. Y8
ATM Issues
Dominate
2019
TINA OREM
torem@cutimes.com
redit union executives had plenty of
things to talk about
in 2019, but ATMs
were undoubtedly one of the hottest topics. ATMs, after all, have
become competitive advantages,
operational headaches, revenue
diversifiers and fraud targets all in
one for many credit unions – especially this year. Here’s what had
tongues wagging in 2019, according to two industry professionals.
Counting to 10
Converting to Windows 10 has
been the credit union industry’s
biggest ATM challenge this year,
according to Doug
Falcone, CEO of
the Whippany,
N.J.-based ATM
Consultants. Support for Windows
7 ends on Jan. 14,
2020, and credit
unions that don’t
migrate their ATMs
to Windows 10 by then could become targets for fraud and hacking, some experts warned. That’s
forced many credit union leaders
into tough conversations about
budgets, timelines and other ATM
priorities in 2019.
“It’s a very costly endeavor,”
Falcone said. “It’s not Y17
PAYMENTS
Falcone
Harper
NCUA BUDGET
DAVID BAUMANN
dbaumann@cutimes.com
CUs Pan Consumer Protection Plan
Y16