NCUA Says CUs Must Facilitate Member Communication on Conversions to Banks

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Federal credit unions converting to mutual savings banks must facilitate communications between members during the balloting and allow members to receive communications with other members electronically, NCUA said yesterday. “Our view is, if a member has provided his or her email address to the credit union for any purpose, the credit union must assume the member has agreed to accept conversion-related communications electronically,” said NCUA in a new legal opinion letter furnished to Silver, Freedman & Taff, the Washington lawyers who have engineered most of the conversion to mutual savings banks. Under NCUA’s new rules, a member who wants to communicate with other members about the conversion may request the credit union send the communication at the member’s expense by regular mail to all voting members–or electronically, if the members have already requested email notifications. Since the member must pay for the communications, the credit union must let all members know, as part of the 90-day notice of conversion, how many voting members there are and how many have agreed to accept communications in electronic form.