NCUA Board Meeting Agenda; This and That

Posted by Anthony Demangone

NCUA has released the agenda for this Thursday's NCUA Board Meeting.  It is a light agenda, and no, the SAFE Act is not one of the items to be discussed.  (Speaking of the SAFE Act, a little birdie tweeted in my ear that the federal mortgage underwriter registration system likely will not be ready until 2011.)

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Here are a number of items of interest.

• Reputation. Here's a wonderful blog post from the Bank Lawyer's Blog that reminds us that just because we can do something, it doesn't mean that we should. Before moving forward, we should always think about our reputation.  The post describes how a JP Morgan Chase marketing campaign designed to push customers to use "signature" rather than "PIN" on their debit cards backfired.  It turns out that the marketing materials went to a journalist who viewed them as misleading.  It sort of went downhill from there.

• Misleading Overdraft Program.  The OTS issued a $400,000 civil money penalty against a bank for a number of things.  But what caught my eye was that a good deal of the cease and desist order centered on a misleading overdraft protection program.  Moving forward, the bank must set aggregate overdraft fee limits for account holders as well as giving customers a reasonable opportunity to stop "daily overdraft fees." (see page 8.)  Oh, and now the bank has to repay customers who were "harmed" by the overdraft protection program.  How much?  A total of $12 million. Granted, this is a bank that is regulated by OTS.  But generally, all federal regulators have very similar administrative powers.  That should get your attention.

• OTS Best Practices.  When the OTS issued the CMP above, it also issued proposed supplemental guidance for overdraft protection "best practices."  This guidance is not joint in nature - it was only issued by the OTS.  I may look into this in greater detail later on.  But for now, I just pass it along as an FYI.

• BOD. Filene's blog does a nice job of highlighting how the role of a credit union director is becoming more difficult.

• The most recent issue of NACHA's Risk Management News is available.  This is a good overview document for ACH peeps.

• Check out the new $100 bill. The presser links to an interactive program that shows off the new security features of the new "Benjamin."  I bet your tellers could use that information.

• The FTC is looking into whether they need to tweak COPPA.