Breaches may be high profile these days, but credit unions are witnessing an improvement in fraud conditions on plastic cards, according to a CUNA Mutual Group security executive.

A little known North Dakota law adopted in March and enabling credit union-to-mutual bank conversions in two years has been added to the national conversion dialogue and lexicon.

Embarking on several new expansion bids during the remainder of 2007, CO-OP Financial Services has signed a tentative deal with Costco Wholesale Corp. to provide ATM surcharge-free access at 350 of its stores and on another front is making plans for credit card processing by yearend.

Based on recent history, no two credit union-to-bank conversions are alike, underscoring the need for groups strongly opposing the trend to keep up their guard, according to Wendell "Bucky" Sebastian, the chairman of the National Center for Member Trust.

Issuing a plea for industry unity to stop conversions, the retiring head of the Arizona Credit Union League has criticized conversion advocates as greedy and "get rich" schemers.

In an historic first, member credit unions in the now-defunct North and South Dakota Leagues convened here last week for the first annual conference of the Mid-America Credit Union Association with an expected attendance of 400.

In the face of conversion "rhetoric," CO-OP Financial Services is committed to retaining its strong credit union character as it pursues further signups with ATM/electronic funds processing groups, a number of which are league-sponsored, according to CO-OP Chairman David Maus of Denver.

Praising her industry contributions over a nine-year tenure including collaborative work on H.R. 1151, the Oklahoma Credit Union League formally confirmed today that its President/CEO Lisa Finley would be resigning effective this Saturday, June 16.