<p>WASHINGTON – CUNA President Dan Mica and other senior CUNA staff briefed Roger Ferguson, Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, on credit union health in the slow economy and a number of different credit union issues, according to CUNA staff who attended the meeting. "Senior Fed officials have relatively little access to credit union news so it was a real opportunity to be able to interact with Governor Ferguson and let him know about credit union news and our needs," said Mary Dunn, CUNA's Senior Vice President for Regulatory Advocacy. Bill Hampel, CUNA's Chief Economist, briefed the Vice Chairman on credit union financial health and other staff took up particular points as well. CUNA focused particularly on asking for more credit union representation on Committee's at the Fed and on boards of different Federal Reserve banks. Federal Reserve Bank board positions are allotted in part by industry sector and CUNA asked the Vice Chairman to help open up more slots for credit unions. CUNA said the Vice Chairman expressed his gratitude for credit unions' leadership role on check truncation, an issue over which Ferguson has played a leading role and which is the subject of legislation pending before Congress now. CUNA is "substantially" happy with the legislation, Dunn said, but would like to "tweak" it a bit to take care of some nagging concerns. For example, the legislation contains a requirement that was designed to protect consumers in the event of erroneous or disputed deposits in their accounts. It mandates that in such disputes the money be left in the consumer's account for five days, opening a window to abuse, particularly for those who are bent on committing fraud, CUNA said.</p>