Advertising Bonuses – Credit Unions

ADVERTISING BONUSES We are often asked to review advertisements that contain bonuses. A bonus, under Truth in Savings (12 CFR 707), requires additional disclosures, so today we thought we would delve into the triggers and requirements. WHAT IS A BONUS? Truth in Savings defines bonus as “a premium, gift, award, or other consideration worth more than $10 (whether in the form … Read More

Proposed NCUA Advertising Rule

The NCUA proposed changes to its advertising requirements under 740.5, which includes: Removing the requirement to include the official advertising statement on annual reports and statements of condition; Allowing the use of another short title “Insured by NCUA”; Increasing the exemption from 15 seconds to 30 seconds for radio and television advertisements. Comments are due by December 4, 2017 740.5 … Read More

WA DCU Bulletin B-17-14 Website Accessibility and Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act

On July 25, the DCU released Bulletin B-17-14, reminding credit unions that their website should be accessible to persons with disabilities.  This was probably from the DOJ changing the rule making priority status on “Nondiscrimination on the Bases of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Service of Public Accommodations” to inactive on its most recent priorities update. *  *  * … Read More

dot creditunion

From CUNA News 03/28/2017: CUNA, with the generous support of CUNA Mutual Group and CO-OP Financial Services, was able to secure the rights to the .creditunion domain from the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Beginning this summer, credit unions will be able to register and use a .creditunion domain name of their choice to serve as a … Read More

Bad Reviews? Let them stay.

Congress unanimously passed the Consumer Review Fairness Act to protect people’s ability to share in any forum their honest opinions about a business’ products, services, or conduct. Some companies had been using contract provisions – including their online terms and conditions – to threaten to sue consumers or penalize them financially for posting negative reviews or complaints. The new law … Read More

Interesting Reads

February’s Scientific American had an article titled Why Don’t People Manage Debt Better. This is a must read for Marketing folks. Mind you, this is not a compliance article but a discussion on how people do not effectively manage debt. The article provides a summary of experiments the researchers ran on the interpretation of advertisements and which ads would invoke … Read More

The IRS Wants Your Help

U.S. Treasury Asks Financial Institutions to Encourage Customers to Use Direct Deposit for Tax Refunds The Fiscal Service and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have been working collaboratively to increase direct deposit for the upcoming 2016 tax filing season. Together we have developed the key social media messages that we are asking you to use in order to encourage your … Read More

Enforcement Policy Statement on Deceptively Formatted Advertisements

The Federal Trade Commission issued an enforcement policy statement explaining how established consumer protection principles apply to different advertising formats, including “native” ads that look like surrounding non-advertising content. In the Enforcement Policy Statement on Deceptively Formatted Advertisements, the Commission lays out the general principles the Commission considers in determining whether any particular ad format is deceptive and violates the … Read More

Amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule

The amendments include prohibiting four specific payments methods used by telemarketers and changes related to the National Do Not Call Registry. The prohibited payment methods include: Cash-to-Cash money transfers – where cash is received from one person and transferred to another person in a different location and received in cash. This includes services like Moneygram or Western Union. Cash reload … Read More