In 2003, AFSA continued to provide a wide range of services for its companies, participated in a number of coalitions with member and non-member institutions to provide industry representation on Capitol Hill and increased support of state associations to protect members against unnecessary or overly burdensome legislation.

It was a year where credit reporting, privacy, e-contracts, municipal litigation, abusive mortgage lending legislation, bankruptcy reform, do-not-call lists, auto finance disclosures and financial literacy dominated our agenda. Add several major conferences, professional development programs and a major communications campaign to support some of our state lobbying efforts—and you can see that it was a very full, active year.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Significant coordination of industry efforts resulted in the passage of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACT Act)—and an important legislative win for AFSA members in all industry segments.

• Abusive mortgage lending remained a high-profile issue that took some interesting twists and turns. Spurred by consumer activist groups, a number of states and municipalities considered ill-conceived proposals in 2003 that don't focus on abuses but do affect credit availability.

  AFSA addressed these issues in several ways. In the states, we enlisted the services of a public relations firm to help us explain to policy makers why overreaching legislation isn't the way to go. In the cities, we have filed suits—or joined others as was the case in New York City when the association joined the suit brought by Mayor Bloomberg against the City Council. The litigation was successful. All of our litigation remains focused on one single issue: whether a municipality has the legal authority to supersede state authority and set regulations governing mortgage lending.

• We successfully completed development for an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard for electronic contracts. While starting in the auto finance sector, this is an initiative that eventually will benefit other financial services sectors over time.

• We coordinated an initiative on behalf of a number of U.S. based-global financial services firms to deal with the adverse implications of proposed regulations being issued by the European Union on financial reporting.

• We completed the 3rd successful Finance Industry Conference for European Investors in London and will hold the 4th conference in Amsterdam this April. The 2004 U.S. Finance Industry Investors Conference, scheduled for early May in Washington, DC, is on track to be a very successful event.

• The AFSA Education Foundation completed the beta testing for MoneySKILL, its financial literacy curriculum and "officially" rolled out this program last month through a news release distributed nationally. The Internet-based curriculum is offered to schools at no cost. Teachers and students are providing very favorable feedback.

• During 2003, AFSA's State Government Relations department saw the departure of Rick Covert, who was ably replaced by Danielle Fagre, Vice President, State Government Affairs. By the end of the 1st quarter of 2004, Danielle began to expand the legislative function to include credit card, auto finance and personal loans in addition to the landmark work that was accomplished on mortgage lending initiatives.

• AFSA's complimentary legislative tracking system underwent substantial enhancements and provides member company access (through AFSA's Web site) 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, from anywhere in the world. During 2003, this service was expanded to provide tracking of regulatory matters in addition to legislation.

• AFSA Management Development Programs at Marquette University and the University of North Carolina continued to receive rave reviews by attendees. In 2004, we conducted the second bi-annual Senior Executive Seminar at UNC.

These are just some of the reasons that AFSA experienced a year of solid achievement. A word of thanks to the many industry executive leaders who donated time and money to the association's initiatives. We appreciate all of your support.

Randy Lively is president and chief executive officer of AFSA.