Federal Employees Get Their OwnCU

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - (06/01/05) -- In one of the broader fields ofmembership ever granted a federal credit union, NCUA announcedTuesday it has approved a new TIP charter for IR FCU to serve allcivilian federal government employees and their family membersthroughout the mid-Atlantic corridor, in metropolitan Washington,D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia. The TIP charter, for trade,industry or profession, will allow the $200 million credit union,based in the Washington suburb of Lanham, Md., to serve as many asone million people--including 425,000 federal workers and theirfamilies--in 40 counties in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland,Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. Officialswith the credit union, which is celebrating its 70th anniversarythis year, were excited by the precedent-setting charter. "We'rethrilled beyond words. This allows us to serve a whole new market,"David Bunch, president of IR FCU, told The Credit Union Journal.The credit union was chartered to serve employees of the InternalRevenue Service and currently serves more than 50 select groups, aswell as the IRS. NCUA also approved three other TIP charters, for:Illinois State Police FCU, Springfield, Ill., to serve all policeand related employees in Illinois; Rushmore Electric FCU, RapidCity, S.D., to serve the power industry in South Dakota andWyoming; and Hawaii State FCU, Honolulu, to serve all state andlocal government agencies in Hawaii.