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Credit Union Times

MARCH 17, 2021 | VOL. 32 | NO. 3 | CUTIMES.COM

Must Reads

LENDING LEGISLATION
Forgiving Student Borrowers
Rising college costs and low bor-
rowing restrictions on student
loans mean that many young
people and their parents are
struggling with education debt.
Credit union leaders need to be
aware of changes brought about
by the CARES Act and other leg-
islative actions taken in 2020 that
provide some relief for borrowers.
One form of relief came
through the suspension of pay-
ments on federal loans held by
the Department of Education. The
suspension period was originally
set to apply from March 13, 2020
to Sept. 30, 2020, but was subse-
quently extended to Jan. 31, 2021.
During this period, payments
were automatically stopped for
borrowers with qualifying loans.
Another form of relief came
from dropping interest rates to 0%
on these same loans. This sounds
straightforward, but advisors
need to be aware that there are re-
ally three primary types of loans:
federal loans, private loans and
hybrid federal/private loans of-
fered through the Federal Family
Education Loan (FFEL) Program.

The emergency relief benefitsapply only to borrowers withfederal loans held by the federalgovernment, and do not apply tothe majority of federally backedFFEL loans issued by privatelenders before 2010.

Borrowers With ExistingFederal Student Loan Debt

The CARES Act greatly benefitedthose with PLUS loans, Y15

CommercialLoans PushForwardJIM DUPLESSISjduplessis@cutimes.com

ichael Griffiths isone of those millennials born withexquisite timing.

He graduated from the University of Utah in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree infinance.

Before the inkwas dry on his diploma, he wentto work for a regional bank inSalt Lake City.The next year helanded a job withWells Fargo as a vice presidentand senior business relationshipmanager. That move gave him afront-row seat to the thrills of theGreat Recession that began justa year later.

By 2010, he had rejoined theregional bank, and then got achance to run commercial lending for Mountain America FederalCredit Union of Salt Lake City ($12billion in assets, 956,185 members), the nation’s 12th-largestcredit union in total assets andthe sixth-largest commercial loanproducer last year.

Mountain America hired him asvice president of business lendingin December 2019.

“I got thrown right into the fire,”Griffiths said. Y17BUSINESS LENDING

Griffiths

BranchNetworkStrategy

Let data guide your
decisions. Y10
Transforming
the Branch
Peek inside one
CU’s retro-theme
location. Y8
FOCUSREPORT:
THE STATE OF
BRICK & MORTAR

One year into the COVID- 19 pandemic, CUs are reconsidering therole of the physical branch as more and more consumers favordigital banking channels. In this Focus Report, experts discusswhat the future holds for CU branches and why they’re still animportant growth strategy element. Y6

ozens of federal programs – including several affecting financialservices – are vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse because of poor oversight by agenciesor neglect from Congress, the Government Accountability Office saidin an annual report this month.

“Tens of billions of dol-
lars in additional benefits and
substantial improvements to the
health, well-being and security of
the nation would be achieved by
fully addressing high-risk issues,”
the GAO said in its annual report
on “high-risk” federal programs.

To qualify for the list, at least $1billion must be in jeopardy.

And the oversight gaps are not
improving, Comptroller Gen-
eral Gene Dorado told the House
Oversight and Reform Commit-
tee, which held a hearing on the
report earlier this month. “In most
areas, progress since our last high-
risk update has been limited,” he
said.

Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N. Y.), blamed former President Trump for part ofthe problem.

“Over the past four years, theobjective metrics of the High-Risk List show that the federalgovernment improved less, andregressed more, than before theformer President took office,” hetold Dorado.