Filed under: technology, Uncategorized | Tags: companion computing, credit unions, gadgets
Normally, I pillage content from the blog and use it in the podcast. Today I’m taking a topic we discussed on the show and expanding it for the blog.
So far my iPad has been my constant companion for the last three weeks. I believe that it is the very first true companion computer to be sold on a widespread basis. The idea behind companion computing is that you have a device that is multi-functional and works as a multipurpose tool that gets nearly constant use. Certainly a cell phone makes some steps toward this goal. But the iPad takes it to a new level.
The value that I see for credit unions and the iPad is not only related to the potential for moving forward with the paperless office. Rather I also see it as a thin client for credit union employees. There are many applications for the iPad that allow the iPad to dial into computers as a thin client. For a device known primarily for its capacity to aid in consuming media, it turns out that the iPad can also be a business tool.
Citrix is one of the largest providers of software in this arena. Citrix has many apps for the iPad already. Instead of buying your employees laptops for $1,500, you may be able to buy them iPads for $500 and achieve the same functionality. Moreover, with the iPad’s ability to do virtually any other type of electronic human activity, you’ll have a happy employee. From e-mail to streaming movies to reading books to playing games, you name it and the iPad does it. I wouldn’t be surprised if many companies adopt the iPad as the ultimate portable thin client.
On the member side of things, many credit unions have developed apps for the iPod. I would encourage them to also develop apps for the iPad. From what I’ve seen, the iPad is selling at an astonishing rate. Your members will appreciate it, especially if they can securely access their accounts and do bill pay via the iPad.
As an aside, once again I am using DragonDictate to create this blog post. I found out the DragonDictate software is so good because it sends a recording of my voice to a supercomputer at the Dragon offices and converts it from speech to text. This is freakishly science-fiction like, yet it’s also been available on the iPhone for some time. There’s a reason Apple has been on fire lately. When has a 1st generation gadget ever done so much?
Filed under: Current Issues in Credit Unions, Uncategorized | Tags: Current Issues in Credit Unions
Denise Wymore and Carla Day join Brian, Katherine and Rob for our 4th Anniversary Show. Here are the topics:
–Social media policies
–The iPad as a thin client option for credit unions?
–Conferences: dinosaurs or essential for collaboration?
–Big K Roundup: live from the NACUSO convention.
The CIiCU hosts are:
Brian Witt
Hal Scoggins
Farleigh Wada Witt,
Attorneys at Law
121 SW Morrison Street, Suite 600
Portland, Oregon 97204
Telephone: 503-228-6044 503-228-6044
Fax: 503-228-1741
http://www.fwwlaw.com
Guy Messick
Katherine Weber
Messick & Weber P.C.
211 North Olive Street
Media, PA 19063
Telephone 610-891-9000
Fax 610-891-9008
http://www.cusolaw.com
Faith Anderson
American Airlines Credit Union
P.O. Box 619001
MD 2100
DFW Airport, TX
75261-9001
(800) 533-0035 (800) 533-0035
https://www.aacreditunion.org/default.asp
Anthony Demangone
AFCU Director of Regulatory Compliance
NAFCU – National Association of Federal Credit Unions
3138 10th Street North
Arlington, VA 22201-2149
Telephone: 703-522-4770
Toll-Free: 800-336-4644
Fax: 703-524-1082
http://www.nafcu.org/
Robert Rutkowski
Shareholder
Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co., L.P.A.
323 W. Lakeside Avenue, Suite 200
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
Telephone: 216-739-5004 216-739-5004
Fax: 216-739-5642
http://www.thatcreditunionblog.com
http://www.weltman.com
Subcribe to the show via iTunes Music Store: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=151785964&s=143441
Today and tomorrow, I will be attending the American Bar Association’s (ABA) spring meeting for business lawyers. The ABA has a Credit Union subcommittee, which, in turn, has more subcommittees. I recently became co-chair of the Credit Union subcommittee’s Technology committee, so I’m looking forward to presenting to the group as well as learning a great deal.
It takes a lot of time to stay current on compliance issues. By attending the seminars, we all teach each other different developments in compliance and other legal issues. All told, my best guess is that there are about 200 credit union lawyers in the United States. These kinds of conferences are a great value to me and provide material both for the blog and podcast.
Conferences available to credit union employees and directors can provide the same experience. The education is valuable in and of itself but they can also energize and motivate as well. Lots of the interaction that you get when you go to the conferences is priceless. How else can you meet people to collaborate with on new ideas? Everything I’ve done by way of marketing has been via meeting people at conferences.
So now that the economy seems to be improving, I recommend that credit unions beef up their travel budgets. Go out there and meet with people- talk about things that are happening with you or your credit union and share ideas and experiences. The credit union movement is an extremely collaborative industry. Really, it’s like no other that I know of. You’re in the position to share ideas and to learn from each other. It is a tremendous resource so get back out there and meet and discuss and collaborate.
Sure it is hard to get away. But nowadays, with technology, you can take your work with you. I’m a morning person. I’m usually in bed by 9 PM. So when I get up early on West coast time (Denver is on Mountain time), I am able to get work done before anyone else is even up. Just having a heavy workload really is no excuse for not traveling when you can take iPads and laptops and Blackberries (oh my) and accomplish almost as much as you could at the office.
As a speaker, I’ve done more presentations via webinar or audio sessions this year than ever in my career. In some ways this is nice. I get to sit at my desk as opposed to going through TSA. But again, the opportunity to meet new people is nonexistent via webinar. Someday, maybe we’ll have virtual conventions. These conventions could provide some sort of videoconferencing environments where every aspect of the convention/conference as we now know it is recreated virtually. But we’re a long way from that, so the only real option is to travel and meet people and exchange ideas.
Filed under: OCUS, Ohio, pictures | Tags: ohio credit union league, pictures, zenith
The upbeat mood of the attendees and sponsors of this year’s OCUL Zenith Convention inspired me. Last year, who could blame anyone for being negative. Good news did not abound. This year, however, hope seemed to bloom along with the trees in the beautiful spring weather. The economy seems to be on a slow upswing and credit union people are more optimistic than ever!
We were at the Cincinnati Convention Center.
This year, I gave two compliance sessions and we exhibited as well. Of course, just like in year’s past, I took some pictures of people who visited our booth.
Kim and Tammy from Credit Union of Ohio.
Jill from the league is all smiles.
Miranda from Port Conneaut Credit Union.
Robin from Taleris Credit Union and Dawn Pagon’s husband, Ron.
Jennifer and Kay from Sun Federal Credit Union.
The WWR team: Lauren Halton, John Porter, Dawn Pagon and Matt Young.
Believe it or not, this is the 4th Ohio Credit Union League convention I’ve covered here on TCUB. I started this blog in February of 2007. I hope the photography is getting a little better at least!
Filed under: credit unions, social media | Tags: credit unions, foursquare, GPS
Today’s blog comes courtesy of Shari Storm, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Verity Federal Credit Union. Shari is the author of the new book ‘Motherhood is the New MBA”, available here.
“At Squatters Pub in the Salt Lake City airport. Drinking a Polygmay Porter, of course!”
That was the first message I posted to Foursquare. Before Foursquare, I would tweet that sentence every time I passed through SLC. My friends all know that I like a glass of funny named beer after a business trip has ended successfully.
Foursquare made announcing my victory-beer far easier. The GPS program in my phone let me touch one button and publishing my sentence was quick. While I was there, I could see who else had visited the pub and whether or not anyone I knew (from Foursquare) was sitting there at the moment. I also got six points for checking in.
According to their website “Foursquare is a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things. We aim to build things to not only help you keep up with the places your friends go, but that encourage you to discover new places and challenge you to explore your neighborhood in new ways.”
Here are the components of Foursquare that make it important for marketers to pay attention:
1. The immediate nature of the review. I’ve long told marketers to pay attention to Yelp. Foursquare is like Yelp on speed. Since the phone app makes posting an opinion almost instantaneous, a member will voice their pleasure or displeasure over your service while standing at your teller station.
2. The addictive nature of the program: Since Foursquare users earn points for various behavior, people quickly become fanatics of it. You’ll see consumers vying to be “mayor” of their favorite establishments. It’s got that Farmville vibe to it. And if you don’t know what Farmville is, you don’t have enough friends on Facebook.
3. The face-to-face potential: The strongest online communities form around people who get the opportunity to meet in real life. Blogher is an example of this. People who are friends on forums like Twitter often want to meet in real life. Since Foursquare can send you an audible alert when you’ve checked into a place where someone else is or when one of your friends checks into a place near you, it increases the likelihood of bumping into friends. One recruiter nicely summed up his desire to meet possible recruits using Foursquare in this blog post. http://blog.ingramtalent.com/2010/03/20/locationbased-data-and-recruiting.aspx
My basic advice to marketers is to put Foursquare on your radar (what an outdated term, put it on your GPS!). Here are three more suggestions:
1. Look up your locations on Foursquare and see how many people are checking in. What are they saying about your service?
2. Consider building a badge for your company, like the History Channel did – http://mashable.com/2010/04/13/history-channel-foursquare/
3. Send the mayor of your locations a fun gift – perhaps a button that says, “I’m mayor of Verity Credit Union” or some other sort of credit union flair.
Today’s blog comes courtesy of Guy Messick, a Partner at Messick & Weber P.C. in Media, PA.
Judge Christine M. Arguello has issued her decision in Bellco Credit Union versus the United States of America. This is one of the UBIT cases. The IRS assessed Bellco Unrelated Business Income Tax (“UBIT”) on certain income items and Bellco paid the tax and has sued for a refund. By doing so, Bellco is able to have this case litigated in federal district court and not the tax courts which tend to be more favorable to the IRS.
The taxes were assessed upon the following types of income:
1. Financial Services such as networking fees paid by an affiliated broker/dealer;
2. Credit Life and Credit Disability Insurance (collectively “Credit Insurance”); and
3. Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance (“AD&D”).
The taxpayer, Bellco, has the burden of proof to show that the income was not subject to the Unrelated Business Income Tax. On some points Bellco lost due to inadequate records. Bellco often had to reconstruct records over many years as the UBIT issue was not a consideration at the time some of these services were provided.
The Court focused on whether the income was substantially related to one of the two purposes of Bellco which the IRS agreed is to promote thrift among the members (“thrift function”) and to provide a source of credit upon reasonable terms (“lending function”). The Court also looked to see if the payments were royalties as royalties are not subject to UBIT.
The first decision in the case was on November 12, 2009. The Judge decided the following on a Summary Judgment Motion:
1. Bellco has a networking agreement with CUSO Financial Services, LP (“CFS”) wherein CFS provides non-deposit financial products to enable members to plan and invest in their future. The Court concluded that this meets the thrift function and therefore all the networking fees derived from the services to members are not subject to UBIT. Any networking fees derived from services to non-members is subject to UBIT.
2. Bellco is a co-owner of Member Gateways, LLC. Member Gateways is a co-owner of CFS. While some of the profits from CFS and other sources are filtered to Bellco through the Member Gateways relationship, Bellco did not prove the substantial connection to the thrift function and therefore the income from Member Gateways is subject to UBIT.
3. First Choice Credit Union merged into Bellco. Since Bellco could not establish some of the sources of the income that came over to Bellco, that income is subject to UBIT.
The second decision was issued on Good Friday April 2, 2010. The Judge decided the following after a trial:
1. Bellco has a Credit Insurance Plan for direct and indirect lending programs that pays off the balance of a loan should a member die or is disabled during the term of the loan. This product is the source of the famous credit union slogan, “The debt dies with the member.” The testimony established that Bellco ran a good program that gave good value for the services and was not primarily profit driven. The Court found the Credit Insurance products promoted thrift as a valuable part of a member’s financial planning and therefore the income derived by Bellco on these products was not subject to UBIT. There was certain undefined Credit Insurance income which did not have adequate records to establish the source of that income and so it was subject to UBIT. Finally, Bellco is a co-owner of CUILA, an indirect lending CUSO. There were not sufficient records to establish that the source of the income was Credit Insurance and so it was subject to UBIT.
2. The income from the AD&D products was deemed a royalty and not subject to UBIT. The testimony showed that the only function of Bellco was to manage its brand, e.g., checking to see that advertisements were not offensive to the members. All substantive work was being done by AD&D providers in a turn-key operation.
Conclusion
This was a great victory for Bellco and credit unions. If a credit union can tie the income to a thrift function or royalty, the income derived from the activity will not be subject to UBIT. This was true for networking fees from investment services, credit life and credit disability as long as the credit union is not primarily driven by profits and AD&D. While the IRS can appeal, this case and the Wisconsin case are two big victories.
When Steve Jobs called it a magical device, people made fun of it. When he announced the name, people really made fun of it. Yet after spending a few days with it, I’m finding the iPad to be a remarkable tool.
I’ve written twice before about my quest for the paperless office and how credit unions might also pursue this sometimes quixotic goal. A key element to a successful paperless office is to be able to use .pdf files like you would use paper. You can scan any sort of paper and create a searchable .pdf file. You can also print to .pdf files. If nothing else, the iPad is the best .pdf viewer in the world.
The iPad’s app store helps the device to become the craziest Swiss Army Knife computer you’ve ever seen. Right now, I’m using two .pdf viewers: PDFReader HD and iAnnotate PDF. Both of these use a wireless connection to move .pdf files to the iPad. In fact, without Internet access, the iPad turns into an iBrick. Well, it’s not that bad because you still can access files saved on the device, but you can’t access the magic without the Internet. iAnnotate PDF is working very well for me right now. It lets me make notes in the margins of .pdf files and to highlight text. I don’t have an app that lets me write in free hand on the iPad yet, but I suspect that’s coming if it isn’t out yet.
Another App I’m using is the DragonDictate voice recorder. In fact, I dictated some of this blog post with it. I have used DragonDictate in the past with mixed results. But for some reason this iPod version works pretty well. I wonder what it could do with some real computing horsepower and training. It’s quite convenient to lie on the couch dictating into the iPad.
Finally, I’m a disciple of David Allen’s Getting Things Done. One thing that this requires, though, is using one box to put all of your things that you do. Translating that into the paperless world is a bit of a challenge. But if I can train myself to use the iPad exclusively and not to create a paper object, I will be ahead of the game. The thing is there’s real value in printing to paper and integrating the resulting paper object into Mr. Allen’s system. By creating an object not only do you have content in the object but the paper itself creates a placeholder so that you will remember to do what you need to do. This is also cross-referenced in a list. Right now, I have not worked out a .pdf system that functions the same way so I still (shamefully) print a lot of e-mails. If the iPad can get me to stop doing this, it will greatly further my progress in moving to a paperless office.
Filed under: Current Issues in Credit Unions
Our special guest this month is Eric Richard, Esq., Vice President and General Counsel of the Credit Union National Association. Here are the topics:
–Prognosis on financial reform and credit unions.
–Credit union litigation update.
–Clearing the air on Reg E opt-ins.
–Reg Flex Proposed Amendment.
–NCUA’s proposed rule on fiduciary duties.
–Final rules on gift cards.
–HAFA and HAMP.
–Big K Roundup: small credit unions, big technology-how smaller credit unions are using some pretty sophisticated technology to make big strides.
The CIiCU hosts are:
Brian Witt
Hal Scoggins
Farleigh Wada Witt,
Attorneys at Law
121 SW Morrison Street, Suite 600
Portland, Oregon 97204
Telephone: 503-228-6044 503-228-6044 503-228-6044 503-228-6044
Fax: 503-228-1741
http://www.fwwlaw.com
Guy Messick
Katherine Weber
Messick & Weber P.C.
211 North Olive Street
Media, PA 19063
Telephone 610-891-9000 610-891-9000
Fax 610-891-9008
http://www.cusolaw.com
Faith Anderson
American Airlines Credit Union
P.O. Box 619001
MD 2100
DFW Airport, TX
75261-9001
(800) 533-0035 (800) 533-0035 (800) 533-0035 (800) 533-0035
https://www.aacreditunion.org/default.asp
Anthony Demangone
AFCU Director of Regulatory Compliance
NAFCU – National Association of Federal Credit Unions
3138 10th Street North
Arlington, VA 22201-2149
Telephone: 703-522-4770 703-522-4770
Toll-Free: 800-336-4644 800-336-4644
Fax: 703-524-1082
http://www.nafcu.org/
Robert Rutkowski
Shareholder
Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co., L.P.A.
323 W. Lakeside Avenue, Suite 200
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
Telephone: 216-739-5004 216-739-5004 216-739-5004 216-739-5004
Fax: 216-739-5642
http://www.thatcreditunionblog.com
http://www.weltman.com
Subcribe to the show via iTunes Music Store: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=151785964&s=143441
