Lending

Aggressively seeking the membership of small businesses has not traditionally been a strategy for most credit unions.

The $350 million USC Credit Union was recently named the 2010 Financial Services Champion of the Year by the SBA's Los Angeles district office.

In its latest business benchmark report, Experian discovered that firms with more than 1,000 employees continued to show the highest rate of projected severe delinquency with payments owed.

Representative Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the most senior Republican on the House Financial Services Committee told attendees of CUNA's GAC on Feb. 24 that it was time for Congress to lift the cap on credit union's business 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.