U.S. Mortgage Crisis White Paper Published

CUNA Councils
April 24, 2008 | COMMENTS

The CUNA CFO Council has recently published a U.S. Mortgage Crisis white paper that was compiled by CUNA's top economists, Bill Hampel, Mike Schenk and Steve Rick. The paper was first published on the CUNA web site in February 2008. It has been updated for the CFO Council to reflect recent events in the industry.

"The U.S. Mortgage Crisis - Causes, Effects and Outlook Including Suggested Credit Union Responses" provides an excellent analysis of what spawned the financial market dislocations and what opportunities exist for well-positioned credit unions with strong capital positions and stable balance sheets. The authors warn credit unions to avoid unnecessary harm to their credit unions. This means that credit unions with more than adequate capital should not find it necessary to penalize members with higher rates and fees or service cutbacks just to keep net income from falling for a year or two. In addition rising delinquency should not necessarily call for a tightening of credit standards. Finally, “the best response to a decline in net income caused by rising loan losses may be to adjust your budget and then carefully let it happen."

This white paper, and more than 170 others written expressly for the CUNA Councils may be found in the white paper section of each council site - click the "CFO" tab for the mortgage crisis white paper.

Council members may download white papers free of charge. There is a $50 charge for non-members for each paper.