So far, NCUA's TIPs-the trade, industry and profession-wide charters introduced by the agency two years ago-have been a hard sell among credit unions with just a dozen of the new charter types approved since their adoption.
During that time NCUA has approved TIPs covering the healthcare industry, air transportation, education, government workers and local law enforcement. The biggest TIP granted so far has been for Orange County Teacher's CU, the giant Santa Ana, Calif., credit union, to serve as many as 750,000 education workers in nine surrounding counties.
NCUA is currently reviewing as many as 12 more applications for TIPs charters, according to information obtained by The Credit Union Journal under the Freedom of Information Act. Those TIPs would allow the applicant credit unions to serve the automotive aftermarket industry (CAWA FCU); protective services (Rocky Mountain Law Enforcement FCU); multi-media industry (Multi-Media FCU); federal government workers (IR FCU); and government employees (Hawaii State FCU), among others.
