Board OKs Nat'l Corporate FOMs; Delays Decisions

The NCUA board last week voted to expand competition for corporate credit unions when it approved a national field of membership for Western Corporate FCU (WesCorp), San Dimas, Calif.

The board also approved the conversion of Corporate One CU, Columbus, Ohio, to a federal charter, maintaining a national FOM that the corporate already had. That brings to 17 the number of corporate credit unions now with national memberships, ratcheting up the competition for natural-person credit union business.

WesCorp, with almost $12 billion in assets, previously served about 1,000 credit union in nine western states. While WesCorp said it intends to market its products and services nationally, Corporate One said it has no such plans and only converted to a federal charter for its savings on operating expenses and sales tax.

The board also voted its first conversion in 2000 to community charter, approving a request from Universal Campus FCU, Provo, Utah, to convert to a community charter encompassing the 336,000 residents of Utah County. NCUA approved 81 conversions to community charter in 1999, and dozens of applications are still pending.

Just as newsworthy, the NCUA board put off making decisions on several issues. It delayed a decision on an application for San Francisco FCU to convert to a community charter encompassing San Francisco County, which would have been the first community charter awarded a federal credit union that would encompass a major U.S. City.

The board also deferred a decision on its controversial five-year strategic plan, to which both credit union trade groups have objected.

And the board also voted in closed session on disciplinary action against several employees related to the agency's so-called hiring scandal, in which the agency was found to have violated civil service hiring requirements by favoring minorities and women.