Finally--field of membership flexibility

Ever since passage of the Credit Union Membership Access Act of 1998, CUNA has been advocating more flexible regulatory provisions to encourage membership expansion in the spirit of the law.

Those provisions are here. Although overshadowed by the CAP, other amendments to NCUA's Field of Membership Policy are good news for federal credit unions.

All of these provisions were approved on International Credit Union Day. They take effect late next month:

Streamlined Additions

Federal credit unions with multiple membership groups may add new groups up to 500 under NCUA's streamlined process (Form 4015EZ). No overlap analysis is required.

Chartering Criteria

NCUA has more criteria to excuse groups from having to charter their own credit union if they would rather join an existing FCU.

City-wide Charters

Cities and metropolitan areas with more than 300,000 residents - such as Reno, Nevada and San Francisco, California - may qualify for a community charter if they meet the local interaction criteria.

Reasonable Proximity

FCUs may accept groups within reasonable proximity of a shared service facility, if the FCU or its CUSO owns at least a 5% interest in the facility (or the facility is local to the FCU and the FCU is an authorized participant in the facility).

State-to-Federal Conversions

State-chartered, multiple-group CUs converting to federal charters may retain their field of membership.

Gron Retention

FCUs converting to single-group charters may continue to serve any group in their field of membership at the time of conversion for up to three more years.

Net Worth Requirement

Multiple-group FCUs under 6% net worth may still add new groups with permission from an NCUA Regional Director.

Student Groups

Student groups may be added as either an occupational or associational group.

Sole Proprietors

Sole proprietors in most cases do not have to be listed separately in an FCU's charter.

Voluntary Mergers

Two single-common-bond credit unions that share the same field of membership or a substantial overlap may voluntarily merge, if the merging CU has less than 3,000 primary potential members. For groups over 3,000, if both CUs serve the same group, no analysis is required on whether the group could form its own CU.

Sponsor Mergers

When two groups served by multiple-group FCUs merge, all affected FCUs can serve the resulting group, subject to any existing geographic limits.

For More, CLICK HERE RegWatch www.cuna.org

Copyright Credit Union National Association, Inc. Oct 23, 2000
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