ENDWELL — Visions Federal Credit Union (FCU) has hired a woman with more than 30 years of financial-services experience to serve in its newly created position of VP of risk management.

Darla Huff, whose experience includes a 15-year background in risk management, started in her new role on Dec. 3.

Having relocated from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Huff most recently worked as a senior director of operational risk management at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, an asset-management firm owned by Ameriprise Financial Inc. (NYSE: AMP).

About the role

As Visions’ chief risk officer, Huff is responsible for “strengthening” its regulatory-compliance efforts, information security, and fraud procedures, and vendor risk management. 

“Those are just some of the risk areas that I’ll be covering,” says Huff, noting it’s an “enterprise” risk-management role, meaning it focuses on every area risk. She spoke with CNYBJ on Jan. 25.

Huff went on to explain that credit risk has always been part of the concerns for credit unions and banks, and that type of risk is easy to measure. If the institution makes a loan for $100,000 and the borrower defaults, the credit union or bank knows what it’s losing.

“But many other aspects of risk are not easily quantifiable,” Huff notes.

 She pointed to vendor risk management, noting that it’s “very difficult” to calculate that risk to the organization. Visions FCU has a vendor risk manager and other employees in risk roles throughout the organization.

“But they’re not brought together so that there’s a complete enterprise view, and that’s what I’m creating,” says Huff.

When asked for an example of risk involving a vendor, Huff mentioned computer software and how it handles personal data.

Regulators have “ramped up” their expectations about what they expect credit unions to do in managing their vendors and making sure their vendors are “appropriately” managing the information that they have access to,” says Huff.

Besides vendor risk, she calls cybersecurity “one of the biggest risks” in protecting people’s privacy and “personally identifiable information.” “That’s a key concern,” she says.

Working with Visions’ executive leadership, Huff also wants to help the credit union to maintain a “balanced risk/rewards framework.”

When asked to explain what that means, Huff says she wants Visions to focus on taking “measured risks.” “So, let’s try to find out everything we can up front and not have any surprises,” she adds.

For example, if Visions should purchase a new software program for transmitting member data, Huff says the credit union should know ahead of time if the product is secured and encrypted before the organization starts using it.

Visions Federal Credit Union, headquartered in Broome County, operates 51 branches in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. It has about 200,000 members and 600 employees, according to its website. 

Established in 1966, the nonprofit Visions FCU offers traditional banking services such as checking and savings accounts, mobile and online banking, as well as auto, home, personal, credit card, and business loans. The credit union has $4.1 billion in assets. 

Tyrone Muse is president and CEO of Visions FCU and George Bobinski, Jr. is chairman of the credit union’s volunteer board of directors.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Jan. 29 that he is nominating Maria Vullo as a member of the State of New York Mortgage Agency (SONYMA). She currently serves as superintendent of the Department of Financial Services (DFS) but is set to step down from that position on Feb.1.

SONYMA is a public-benefit corporation that New York State created in 1970 to help provide affordable homeownership to low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.

Prior to joining DFS, Vullo was a litigation partner at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, where she led civil, criminal, and regulatory investigations before courts and governmental authorities across the country.

Vullo also served as executive deputy attorney general for the Economic Justice Division in the Office of the New York State Attorney General, under then New York State Attorney General Cuomo. There, she oversaw the Bureaus of Investor Protection, Antitrust, Real Estate Finance, Consumer Frauds and Internet, leading investigations across New York State. Vullo earned her law degree from the New York University School of Law, a master’s in public administration from the New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and a bachelor’s degree from the College of Mount Saint Vincent. 

Cuomo on Jan. 4 announced that he has nominated Linda Lacewell to be the new superintendent of DFS, replacing Vullo. Lacewell most recently served as the governor’s chief of staff. In that role, she oversaw executive chamber operations, as well as ethics and law enforcement matters.

Lacewell previously served as executive director of a cancer foundation initiative in Culver City, California. Prior to that, she served as chief risk officer and counselor to Gov. Cuomo, where she built and implemented the first statewide system for ethics, risk and compliance in agencies and authorities, according to a governor’s office news release. Lacewell was formerly special counsel to the governor, as well as the architect of OpenNY, a state-of-the-art open data initiative. She also served as special counsel to then-Attorney General Cuomo, where she oversaw the public pension fund pay-to-play investigation and the out-of-network health insurance investigation. Lacewell earned her B.A. from New College of the University of South Florida and her J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law.   

ALBANY — The board of directors of the Albany–based New York Credit Union Association (NYCUA) has approved its 2019 state legislative priorities. 

During this year’s state legislative session, NYCUA plans to advocate for legislation dealing with data security, mortgage-foreclosure reform, state and local-government deposits, and improvements to the state charter.

NYCUA contends that it will continue to advance a “pro-credit union and pro-consumer agenda,” per a news release posted on its website.

Data security

NYCUA says it would like to see legislation that would require all entities that handle consumer information to comply with comprehensive data-security standards and hold retailers accountable for the costs of data breaches if they fail to meet state cybersecurity standards.

Data breaches expose credit-union members to fraud and identity theft and result in “significant monetary costs and reputational damage to credit unions,” NYCUA says. 

When a data security breach occurs at a given retailer, it’s possible that it could lead to transactions on a person’s credit or debit card, says William Mellin, president and CEO of NYCUA. He spoke with CNYBJ in a telephone interview on Jan. 29.

The financial institution that issued the card is “100 percent responsible” for the losses that result from that data breach, Mellin contends. 

“The merchant has no accountability whatsoever, relative the financial requirements to make it whole,” he adds.

He went on to say that credit unions are under “restrictions” that don’t let them advise their members that a breach is the retailer’s fault. 

“Let’s hold whoever is accountable for the breach to be financially responsible to rectify the breach,” says Mellin.

Mortgage-foreclosure reform

New York’s “lengthy and complex” foreclosure process causes homes to “languish and deteriorate, negatively impacting communities and neighborhoods,” NYCUA says.

Without sacrificing consumer protections, NYCUA contends it will pursue “simple, common-sense” reforms that will ease the tremendous burdens credit unions and communities face when attempting to foreclose on a property.

Mellin asserts that changes to the mortgage-foreclosure process would help all financial institutions, not just credit unions. He says that New York has “one of the longest” foreclosure processes in the country, but also notes that it was “well intentioned.” 

The process seeks to make sure that the homeowner has “every possible opportunity” to stay in the home as long as possible to make the mortgage payments and move on. But, in many cases, they’re just able to recover and the lengthy foreclosure process begins. 

“It doesn’t really do the individual, the borrower, the homeowner any good because they’re in limbo during this transitional period. It’s hard for them to get on with their life,” says Mellin.

He says credit unions will work with members to see if they can forgive some of the debt, change some of the debt over to some other kind of a loan, or get the house sold off.

NYCUA would like to see a law that speeds up the process, protects the consumer, and gives a homeowner every chance to keep the home. 

“But if it’s not going to work out, let the financial institution move forward, let the member move forward, foreclose on the property, sell the property, and hopefully, be able to pay that debt off,” he says. 

State and local government deposits 

New York is not among the “majority” of states that have enacted legislation authorizing credit unions to accept public deposits, NYCUA says. Authorizing governments to deposit funds in credit unions will “ensure taxpayer money is getting its best return,” it contends.

Most states allow their municipalities, such as a city or school district, to use a local credit union. As an example, Mellin cites the Albany Fire Department, which has its own federal credit union. The department would like to use its own credit union for its deposits, says Mellin. 

“Under New York State law … the Albany Fire Department can only use a commercial bank,” he added.

Mellin also noted that the current state law is more than a century old, dating back to a time that preceded credit unions.

An improved state charter

Mellin calls New York’s credit-union charter “one of the best charters in the country,” but NYCUA contends that an improved state charter would “create increased competition” with the federal charter. 

By improving the state credit-union charter, New York has the opportunity to expand credit-union access and allow more New Yorkers to “reap the benefits” of credit-union membership, NYCUA says.

Federally charted credit unions are allowed to offer certain limited services to non-members, such as cashing payroll checks.

“[They can also] offer the opportunity to cash their check and maybe they want to pay their local utility [and other bills] … cash that check and turn it into money orders for maybe four or five or six different obligations,” says Mellin.

About NYCUA

For more than 100 years, the New York Credit Union Association has served as the trade association for the state’s credit unions, which collectively hold more than $83 billion in assets and serve 5.8 million members. 

The board of directors of Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: BHLB), parent of Berkshire Bank, recently voted to increase its quarterly cash dividend by 1 cent, or 5 percent, to 23 cents a common share 

The dividend will be payable on Feb. 28 to shareholders of record at the close of business on Feb. 14. At Berkshire Hills Bancorp’s current stock price, the dividend yields 3.4 percent on an annual basis. The banking company’s board also boosted its quarterly cash dividend on its preferred stock by 5 percent to 46 cents per share.

Boston–based Berkshire Hills Bancorp has $12.2 billion in total assets and 115 branches in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, providing personal and business banking, insurance, and wealth-management services. The company also offers mortgages and specialized commercial-lending services in select national markets. Berkshire has a pending agreement to acquire SI Financial Group, Inc., parent of Savings Institute Bank & Trust Company, a $1.6 billion bank with 23 branches in eastern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp reported net income of more than $105 million on revenue of more than $469 million last year. 

Berkshire Bank has $649.5 million in deposits in the Utica–Rome metro area through its 13 branches, good for a 15 percent share of all deposits in the market, according to FDIC data as of June 30, 2018. It ranks No. 3 in market share in the region. Berkshire Bank has 10 branches in Oneida County and three branches in Herkimer County.