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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-

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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.