Commentary

You come home from work and collapse on the couch. Turning on the television a familiar melody fills the room. "Like a good neighbor." The 30 seconds end, but the dependability of State Farm lingers on your lips. Although you may not be able to remember what you had for...

More and more credit unions seem to be interested these days in lending to small businesses. That is not surprising. As Mike Welch rightly pointed out in his column last week (CU Times, May 1), lending to small businesses has been an integral part of many credit unions' activities from...

CUSOs have begun to enjoy success in many areas, most notably investment and insurance sales to their members. Several have also found that they can advance the overall industry by providing services to other credit unions in data processing, credit cards and even consulting. To do this they need some...

There are many ways to build a building, but all of them are not equal. Without apology, I am partial to the single source design-build process and I strongly recommend it to any financial professional planning a new facility. The team approach of the design-build method maximizes the cooperation of...

Your credit union has a plan to build capital. Your credit union has a bond to protect it against losses. Your credit union looks at ALM issues to keep a good balance. Your credit union has a marketing plan to ensure steady growth of new members. Your credit union has...

It's been more than four months since the anthrax letters closed the Brentwood United States Postal Service facility and the $17 million dollar credit union serving those employees lost their only office. It really is a tribute to the credit union movement and the way it responded to a very...

NAFCU has spearheaded efforts to restore the pre-Credit Union Membership Access Act authority to provide loans to members for business purposes - eliminate MBL limits established by the 1998 statute - and remove the current roadblock to full participation of federally insured credit unions in the Small Business Administration's (SBA's)...

When considering who to partner with for various insurance products, using rate as your determining factor is not always a better deal in the long run. You need to consider what each partner will bring to the partnership and weigh them appropriately. First, you want to look at the stability...