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NORTH POLE—Snowflakes may melt, but December budgets don’t—and credit unions know it. As Christmas arrives, cooperatives across the country are once again blending financial practicality with festive spirit, offering everything from holiday loans and payment relief to food drives, giving trees, and even photos with Santa.

PURCHASE, N.Y.— With shopping lists nearly checked off and the calendar inching toward Christmas, U.S. consumers are closing out the holiday season with a confident swipe—spending more, shopping earlier, and mixing clicks with carts to stretch their dollars.

NEW YORK—Account analysis — long treated as a back-office routine generating dense monthly statements — is rapidly becoming a high-impact profitability engine for banks and credit unions, according to new findings from PYMNTS’ September 2025 Digital Financial Services Tracker Series, produced in collaboration with FIS.

LEVITTOWN, Pa.—In an outcome uncommon in the credit-union industry, members of Spirit Financial CU have voted down management’s proposal to merge with a much larger out-of-state institution, rejecting a deal that would have folded the $70-million cooperative into $2-billion Credit Union 1 of suburban Chicago.

WASHINGTON—The American Bankers Association and dozens of state bankers associations are urging the U.S. Senate to close what they describe as a growing loophole in the GENIUS Act that allows cryptocurrency exchanges and affiliated platforms to offer yield, rewards, or interest on payment stablecoins, despite a statutory prohibition intended to prevent such practices.

SAN FRANCISCO—Wells Fargo & Co. has been sued by a former regional manager who alleges he was fired for pressing the bank to follow through on its stated diversity goals and for objecting to what he described as sham interviews of minority candidates for jobs that had already been filled, according to Bloomberg reporting.

WASHINGTON—A group of senior House Republicans has urged Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to reconsider recent steps limiting penny circulation, even as they voiced support for President Trump’s decision to halt the production of new pennies.

CHICAGO—TransUnion’s 2026 credit originations forecast points to continued growth in consumer lending, led by mortgages and unsecured personal loans, even as demand across other credit categories remains mixed.