Maine Credit Union League Weekly Update

International Credit Union Day is just around the corner on October 19, and this year is extra special: it’s the 75th anniversary! We hope you’ll join the League and your credit union peers in highlighting how the People Helping People industry works to improve the financial lives of our members. To help, we’ve come up with some engagement ideas to assist your credit union in making the most of this celebration.

This October will mark the 20^th annual Cybersecurity Awareness Month—a time to bring attention to online threats, as well as the steps people can take to better protect themselves when using the internet. The League has developed sample social media messages and graphics that can be customized and shared to help your members learn more about cybersecurity.

The Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee passed the CUNA and League-supported Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act Wednesday with a 14-9 vote.

As the federal government runs out of funding on Saturday, credit unions in Maine are preparing for ways to help members who may be affected. With the lack of consensus driving the federal political climate, credit unions should be prepared to help members who might be impacted if a shutdown goes into effect at 12:01 am on Sunday. 

Since 1995, the Norm Nolette Chapter of Credit Unions has hosted an annual golf tournament to benefit the Campaign for Ending Hunger. This year’s event was held on August 24 at the Poland Spring Golf Course and raised $60,200. The culmination of the Chapter’s twenty-eighth tournament also signifies another significant milestone: this event has raised nearly $1 million since its start.

Registration is now open for the New England 2023 Credit Union Real Estate Network (CUREN) Conference taking place on October 19 at Service CU in Portsmouth. The event will focus on innovation and ways to rethink and solve problems.

The NCUA Board held its eighth open meeting of 2023 and unanimously approved a final rule that amends the NCUA’s regulations regarding indirect lending, the purchase of loan participations, and the purchase, sale, and pledge of eligible obligations and notes of liquidating credit unions.

Topics in this week’s InfoSight newsletter include:

• NCUA Board Approves Final Rule on Financial Innovation
• CFPB Mortgage Report Finds Jumps in Closing Costs and Denials for Insufficient Income, Growing Proportion of Cash-Out Refinances
• CFPB Kicks Off Rulemaking to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports

The digital transformation of the lending landscape has great benefits, but it has also opened the door to predatory lending practices. This article from TruStage™ points out how credit unions, with their member-centric approach, are well-positioned to leverage data to help protect their members from falling victim to predatory loans.