ARLINGTON, Va. -- In 2008, the slowly growing industry trend to better card management began to bear fruit, representing a shift in credit union attitudes toward credit cards over the last few years.

WASHINGTON -- Treasury's inspector general has reported that its western regional director had approved the backdating of a capital infusion into the failed IndyMac Bank to avoid repercussions of a falling capital position.

SYDNEY, Australia -- Police in the Australian state of New South Wales are forming a task force with financial firms and retailers to combat an epidemic of attempts to steal money from ATMs by blowing them up, according to press reports.

WASHINGTON -- A card issuer that marketed Visa and MasterCards specifically to the subprime market will have to reverse more than $114 million it charged cardholders in fees, as part of a settlement reached with the Federal Trade Commission.

NEW YORK -- Visa USA has announced the repurchase of over $1 billion worth of its class B shares, currently held by credit unions and banks which issue Visa, to fund an additional deposit into an escrow account set aside to cover legal expenses.

DURHAM, N.C. -- The Center For Responsible Lending, an affiliate of the $301 million Self-Help Credit Union, has issued two reports highly critical of mainstream credit card practices which bank card issuers will have to abandon as of July 2010.

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- The Pennsylvania Credit Union Association has released a statement marketing credit union-issued credit cards as beneficial.

BRONX, NY -- Despite the current recession-or perhaps because of it-the $15 million Bethex Federal Credit Union has taken a strong position on small business and micro-lending and has recently announced a change to its lending practices.