Discovering that there is growing interest in offering memberbusiness loans in Louisiana, a new council held a three-day confabthis week to help credit unions seek out opportunities.

The Louisiana Credit Union League's Member Business ServicesCouncil kicked off a business lending school on Tuesday in BatonRouge. Representatives from 13 credit unions around the stateattended the sessions.

According to the league, the program included an overview of thenational and state MBL landscape and a review of how business loans are structuredand priced.

Attendees from credit unions with established MBL programs aswell as those that were interested in offering the loans, alsoheard a discussion of examiner hot button topics and more advanced issues such asrisk analyses and monitoring, financial statement analyses, creditpresentations, loan participations and overall programmanagement.

The league said there was also a discussion on the challengesand opportunities with their peers, and attendees had theopportunity to apply what they learned in hands-on exercises.

The member business services council coordinated its localbusiness lending training with Mike Smith, vice president andsenior business officer with CU Business Group, a business services and lending CUSO inPortland, Ore.

While 33 credit union in Louisiana offer MBLs, the league saidthere is strong interest out there and a great need for moreinformation as many credit unions gear up to begin offering thisservice.

The MBSC was developed through a collaborative effort of theleague and several member credit unions and is directed by anadvisory committee of representatives from four Louisiana creditunions.

The council coordinates training opportunities for member creditunions, provides members with a resource website, email listserv,and regular news updates on issues relating to member businessservices, according to the Louisiana league.