With the NCUA turning up the heat on monitoring how CUSOs are conducting their operations, another area could be ripe for more scrutiny.

Gina Carter, an attorney and shareholder with Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek SC in Madison, Wis., heads up the firm's credit union team. Her experience as counsel to both credit unions and CUSOs, particularly in the information technology field, has revealed a number of potential problems.

"What I see a lot of the time is intellectual property issues–not enough attention is being paid to due diligence with partners and vendors to CUSOs," Carter said. "There are many lawsuits dealing with Internet and Web-based products. It's not unusual to see credit unions involved in these."