ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The NCUA Board yesterday extended most of the provisions of the agency’s regulatory flexibility, or RegFlex, program to all credit unions, which previously had been reserved only for the healthiest credit unions.
The move allows all federal credit unions to: make charitable contributions to charities of their choosing; accept non-member deposits, up to the greater of 20% of shares or $3 million, from local governmental entities or other credit unions; use a six-year time horizon (instead of three years) to partially occupy unimproved property acquired for future expansion; and, obtain certain exceptions to constraints on purchasing whole loans from other federally insured credit unions.
The new flexibility will allow all credit unions to engage in the following activities, subject to certain net worth requirements: enter into borrowing-repurchase transactions in which the purchased securities have maturities exceeding the maturity of the borrowing-repurchase agreement; purchase private-label commercial mortgage-related securities; and, invest in zero-coupon securities, subject to certain investment maturity limits.
