Lending

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said today that because credit unions are tax exempt, they need to accept certain restrictions on their activities, including a limit on how much member business lending they can do.

St. Mary's Bank President/CEO Ronald Covey and Mid-Atlantic Federal Credit Union President/CEO Rick Wieczorek are scheduled to discuss the state of business lending and commercial restate during a House committee hearing on Friday.

Nearly one in four mortgages nationwide was in negative equity status as Dec. 31, 2009, up 600,000 from third quarter, according to a report released yesterday by First American CoreLogic.

With the drop in member business lending in 2009, it may be a sign of the times, but the loans were still the fastest growing lending group for credit unions last year.

For some time, the $321 million Granite Credit Union struggled with its payment protection service, unsure of how it could make the offering more attractive to its members.

Credit unions enjoyed being the last ones standing in the auto lending market over the past year, but the competition has started to come back full force.