WASHINGTON – The House is planning to hold hearings next month on the ongoing problems in the corporate credit union network, including last month’s failures of U.S. Central FCU and WesCorp FCU.
The hearings are expected to be held in the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, according to several sources.
The hearings come as credit unions are asking Congress for help paying the $5.9 billion cost of the corporate bailout, which is pushing hundreds of credit unions around the country into the red for the first time. Among the proposals being reviewed by Congress are the creation of a separate Corporate Stabilization Fund that would finance the corporate bailout–to be paid back by credit unions, as well as proposals to allow NCUA to stretch out the costs of replenishing the National CU Share Insurance Fund over as long as eight years; to provide up to $40 billion in emergency borrowing power for NCUA; and to expand the powers of the Central Liquidity Facility to allow it to lend directly to corporates.
