Articles and Publications

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Is It Time to Get Your Head Out of the Clouds?

Henry David Thoreau famously urged us to build our castles in the sky, but always have our foundations on the ground. Personally, I think that’s a great dictum to remember as your credit union, regardless of its size, considers how best to manage the integration of technology into a cloud environment. On the one hand, cloud computing offers the promise of cost-effectively providing a host of technology for your employees and members, which can allow you to grow quicker. On the other hand, cloud computing presents unique risks and challenges of which your credit union must be aware of and, where possible, take steps to mitigate.

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| HENRY C. MEIER, ESQ.

Does the Equal Credit Opportunity Act Protect Potential Borrowers?

Late last week, the CFPB finalized a major regulation implementing Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act. Under this provision, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which is implemented through Regulation B, was amended to mandate that the CFPB develop a framework for financial institutions to collect data on loans to minority and women-owned businesses. Think of this as extending HMDA protections and oversight to business lending for institutions that make 100 or more small business loans a year.

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| HENRY C. MEIER, ESQ.

Time for a National Notarization Standard!

We learned a few good things during the pandemic. For me, right after teaching us that it makes sense to let people work from home, at least part of the time, and that “Breaking Bad” is one of the best shows of all time to binge watch, is that modernizing the notarization process by permitting notaries to remotely certify that documents are properly signed and witnessed is a great idea whose time has come. In fact, during the pandemic, virtually every state in the nation allowed some form of remote notarization.

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| HENRY C. MEIER, ESQ.

5 Things We’ve Already Learned From the SVB Bank Run

Although we are still feeling the aftershocks caused by the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in California and Signature Bank in New York, there are already lessons to learn and questions to ask as we deal with another increasingly common financial surprise.

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| HENRY C. MEIER, ESQ.

Reefer Madness

It’s becoming part of the holiday season ritual. With another Congressional cycle coming to a close, a deeply divided Congress rushes to put a spending plan in place replete with a smattering of unfinished business. Maybe this is the year that Congress finally passes legislation to allow credit unions and banks to provide banking services to marijuana related businesses and their employees in States where marijuana is legal. Common sense says it should, but experience says it won’t.

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