Pictures with Santa - Saturday, December 5th

Santa and Mrs. Claus will be available on Saturday, December 5th at our main office between the hours of 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM for pictures. Our main office location is 2309 Whitesburg Drive South, Huntsville Alabama 35801.

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The first picture is only $5.00 and includes a professional 5 x 7 photo and a Christmas stocking filled with goodies. Additional pictures would be $3.00 or we can email the picture in a digital format for $3.00 also. (This is great for sending to friends and relatives).

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For your convenience, please RSVP Laura Simpson at loanclerk@naecu.org or call 256-534-2423 to schedule an appointment time.

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All proceeds will benefit our year round Breast Cancer Awareness fundraising campaign.

Helping Schools Promotion delivers $4,900 to Area School Systems

Area schools will be receiving much needed money for school supplies as a result of our recent Helping Schools Fall Auto Loan promotion. Under the promotion, qualifying automobile loans earned a $50 donation from Schoolcraft to the school system of the member's choice. The school system that collected the most "votes" or entries would have the total doubled by the credit union.

Huntsville City Schools was the winner! Huntsville City Schools earned 26 votes for a total of $1,300, which North Alabama Educators Credit Union is doubling to a grand total of $2,600 to be given to Huntsville City Schools in the form of a gift certificate to Schoolcraft. Congratulations to Huntsville City Schools on winning the bonus money.

Other school systems earned supply money as well. The other school systems include;

Decatur City Schools - $900
Madison County Schools - $500
Madison City Schools - $300
Limestone County Schools - $250
Athens City Schools - $150
Athens Bible School - $150
Randolph School - $50

A total of $4,900 is being donated to the school systems!

The Schoolcraft certificates will be delivered in the coming weeks. Special thanks are extended to the credit union members who brought their automobile loans to the credit union for financing.

Fraudulent ACH Emails are Circulating

PLEASE BE AWARE OF THE FOLLOWING FRAUDULENT EMAILS TAKING PLACE.

Falsified Emails Purportedly from NACHA are Circulating:

Random individuals and/or companies may have received a falsified e-mail with the subject title "Rejected ACH Transaction." This e-mail appears to be from NACHA - The Electronic Payments Association telling them that there is a problem with an ACH transaction they have originated. The e-mail includes a link which redirects the individual to a fake web page which appears like the NACHA website and contains a link which is almost certainly executable virus with malware. See sample below.

IF YOU GET ONE OF THESE EMAILS DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK! The e-mail did not originate from NACHA and the website does not belong to NACHA. A sample of the phishing email follows:

= = = = = Sample E-mail = = = = = =

From: nacha.org [mailto:report@nacha.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 10:25 AM
To: Doe, John
Subject: Rejected ACH transaction, please review the transaction report

Dear bank account holder,

The ACH transaction, recently initiated from your bank account, was rejected by the Electronic Payments Association. Please review the transaction report by clicking the link below:

"Unauthorized ACH Transaction Report" (this is the how the link is presented in the phishing email).

======= End Sample E-Mail =======================

Concerns over Consumer Financial Protection Agency Proposal

The United States Congress is working on all sorts of "fixes" to help prevent some of the large scale financial failures that we have seen over the past year. A new agency to oversee large financial institutions is one idea being considered by Congress. This new agency would be called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) and one amendment to this proposed legislation (H.R. 3126) would be that the proposed CFPA's examination and enforcement authority be limited to credit unions with more than $1.5 Billion in assets and banks with more than $10 Billion in assets. Under the proposal, financial institutions under the proposed caps would remain under the enforcement authority of their current regulator.

I see several problems with this proposal. First off, we should not be dividing the credit union industry into separate regulators. All credit unions, big and small, share the same structure and are owned by their member-owners. The National Credit Union Administration is fully capable of overseeing credit unions of all sizes. Where there have been problems in credit unions, the focus should be on how good was the oversight from the existing regulator at the time. The knee-jerk reaction sometimes is to assume that a new law or regulation will fix a problem when the original problem could have been prevented by the existing laws and regulations if enacted properly. The credit union industry as a whole was not the source of the financial problems that we have seen over the past year.

I also don't see why there is an asset size differential between the large credit unions and banks for the proposed agency. Is a $1.5 Billion dollar credit union somehow more complex than a $10 Billion dollar bank? If anything I would see the opposite to be true in terms of balance sheet complexity between a bank and a credit union.

North Alabama Educators Credit Union currently holds roughly $73 Million in total assets so we would not be included under the authority of the new proposed agency. Regardless of this fact, a unified credit union industry is in the best interest of all credit unions so we stand opposed to the proposed H.R. 3126 because of this different treatment based upon asset size.

Drawing for Quilt - Funds to Benefit Breast Cancer Awareness

The credit union is accepting $1 tickets towards a drawing for the quilt pictured above. All proceeds from the ticket sales will go towards our Breast Cancer Awareness fundraising campaign. Currently, the quilt can be seen at our main office on Whitesburg Drive. The quilt will also be displayed at our Sparkman Drive and Madison Branch offices in the coming weeks. It was first displayed at our Athens office. Special thanks are extended to one of our employees, Leah Miller, for taking the time to create this beautiful quilt for the drawing. Pictures don't do justice to the quilt so stop by and see it for yourself. We appreciate the participation of our membership in the various Breast Cancer Awareness fundraising efforts throughout the year.

Credit Union Day & Shred-it Day

On Friday, October 16th, the credit union will be hosting Credit Union Day and Shred-it Day for our credit union members. Complimentary refreshments will be provided at our Main Office, Sparkman Branch, Madison Branch, and the Athens Branch on October 16th. Each of these offices also has a gift basket that will be awarded by a drawing at the close of business on Friday. Members can register all week for the drawing. (Please limit entries to one per day).

A popular service for members has been our semi-annual free shredding service. Our 2nd "Shred-it Day" this year will be held at our Main Office on Whitesburg Drive on Friday, October 16th between the hours of 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Document Destruction Services will have their truck parked in our front parking lot to provide this free service. All records will be destroyed on-site within clear view of the member. MARK YOUR CALENDARS! We always hear from members who wanted to shred documents but forgot about the "Shred-it Day". This information was included in our last newsletter. We do ask that members restrict their shred items to paper items only and limit the amount to 40 pounds.

We appreciate our credit union members and hope that you stop by to enjoy the activities this Friday.

Home & Family Finance Resource Center

Credit union members have another good resource available with the addition of the Home & Family Finance Resource Center on our web site. This site is hosted by the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) for use by subscribing credit unions across the country. The web site provides very useful tips, articles, and videos to help educate consumers about a wide variety of financial topics. There are monthly "Family Fitness Challenges" that award cash prizes. Members of all ages can benefit by visiting the site. Teachers may even find some of the resource information helpful for their students. A link to the Home & Family Finance Resource Center is listed on our "HOME" page and "WEB LINKS" page of North Alabama Educators Credit Union. For now, you can click on the logo above to visit the site.

North Alabama Educators Credit Union is pleased to make this online financial resource available for the purpose of helping to improve financial literacy. Money doesn't come with instructions and financial mistakes can take years to overcome. Financial education is a good thing!