Got Snow?: What our company (and our clients) learned from The Blizzard of 2010

by Ron Daly

This story originally ran on the DigitalMailer Blog. 

Call me an optimist, but I'm going to call this storm "THE blizzard of 2010", in the hopes that it's not just "A blizzard of 2010". 

It's been an interesting week here at DigitalMailer. In case you missed any news outlet of the past week, the DC/Metro area got almost THREE FEET of snow dropped on us in the span of a week. Many of our account managers, operations staff and marketing department had to work from home for the entire week - and one of our staff members won't be dug out until days from now. Hang in there, Steve! 

If Capitol Hill Called Up the CU Industry...

[Industry Analyst Elliott Kashner from CreditUnions.com wondered what would happen if Congress decided to aim their judgement at credit unions. Elliott represents the proceedings with a script of the fictional conversation between lawmakers and CU industry head honchos: ]

I couldn't help but wonder how things might look if it were the CEOs of the ten top credit unions: Navy FCU, SECU, Pentagon, BECU, SchoolsFirst, The Golden 1, Suncoast Schools, Alliant, American Airlines, and Security Services. I'd like to imagine it would go something like this. (This did not actually happen, although the data was pulled from Callahan & Associates' First Look Program for Fourth Quarter)

Representative: Thank you all for appearing today in front of the Financial Services Committee. I'd like to start by taking a quick look back over 2008. As I am sure you all know, it was a brutal year. We’ve seen many financial giants fall. In response, Congress has passed several stimulus packages to get the economy back on its feet.
State Employees Credit Union: Well, 2008 was not such a terrible year for us. We actually saw our total assets grow by 11.28%.
Representative: I see you have been making use of TARP funds then.
American Airlines Credit Union: No, we are not currently receiving any federal funds. We were able to fuel our growth by attracting 19.41% in new shares and deposits.
Representative: Then how are you responding the to recession?

1st (and Only) National Bank of America

by Ron Daly

While everyone was concentrating on GAC and the speakers the last couple of weeks, something VERY troublesome was bubbling up in the banking sector. The groundwork for a brand new bank - the “1st National Bank of America” was being put in place. I know you’re thinking walking around in the cold here at the GAC junket has killed a few brain cells. Maybe I’m a pessimist? Or worry too much? But think about how the banking and credit union industries would be changed if this starts at the top of a very slippery slope and then rolls downhill through the system. 

Here’s your assignments... take a read of these articles and play “what-if?”

1) The Associated Press article “Gov’t looks to quell nationalization fears”

2) The Economist article “Banks under Stress” asks "Is it Time to Nationalise Citigroup and Bank of America?"

I think you can make big $$$ with TARP Cliff notes!

by Ron Daly

I’m serious, it is getting so hard to keep track of all the initiatives, who is asking for what, who is mad at whom, what the trades are saying and what all the big CUs are saying about TARP, SIP, CLF and all the other acronym programs. I heard one CEO tell a consultant a few weeks ago that they would gladly pay for a weekly executive summary of everything going on with this issue. Not a bad idea for someone else to run with! 

Of all the articles out there, I think that Steven Syre’s article in the Boston Globe “Paying a giant’s price” is worth reading for some perspectives at credit unions in the northeast. The starting teaser line...   

The Heartland Hack is Still a Problem...a HUGE Problem.

by Ron Daly 

When I was a hard working CFO at a large CU a few years back, the card operations department reported to me. 

I've been down the road of having to block and reissue a compromised merchant database a time or two. There's never a "best case scenario" of a compromised database. The best case scenario is it doesn't happen. But I've had small breaks (80 member accounts affected) and fairly big breaks (400 member accounts affected). There's the estimated ~$15 you spend reissuing cards and closing accounts. And then there's the ~$10 you spend on credit monitoring on the accounts. That's ~$25 per account, so at worst it's about $10,000 that I've had to account for after a breach. And that's why, recently, there's a thought that's been troubling me.

The "Duh of the Week" award for 1/9/08

by Ron Daly

It was brought up on one of our previous comment threads that investigative agencies assign crazy names to robbers/felons to get more press (Thank friend-of-the-blog Jeffry Pilcher for that little tidbit). 

Most of the names match characteristics of the robbers. Example: if the robber is wearing a cowboy hat, he's labeled the "Cowboy Bandit". If he/she is wearing a clown costume, he's obviously going to be the "Clown Bandit". 

Which is why we award the "Duh of the Week" to: 

THE ZOMBIE BANDIT (Read about it here in the CU Journal and here from Fox News). 

Why is this a "Duh of the Week"? Well, he didn't DRESS UP as a zombie. He just looked and acted a lot like a zombie - a byproduct of the crack cocaine addiction that drove his crime spree. 

Here's hoping that the time the robber spends in prison helps him get over his addictions and that his arrest gives the folks at Redwood CU (and elsewhere across the midwest and west coast) a bit of relief. 

Enjoy your "Duh" award, Zombie bandit. Here's hoping you develop a little more "braaaaaiiinnnsss".