NCUA Presses Congress To
Expand CU FOM Powers
WASHINGTON-NCUA renewed its request to Congress last week to allow all credit unions-not just multiple group charters-to add underserved communities to their FOMs, and also asked that all credit unions be allowed to provide services in adjacent low-income areas, a major initiative to expand credit union markets.
The allowance to serve adjacent communities would apply without more restrictive requirements set out under the CDFI program and NCUA's own rules on serving local communities, according to David Marquis, executive director of NCUA, who testified before Congress on the availability of consumer credit.
NCUA has been lobbying Congress for a decade to expand its underserved FOM program, which is now restricted under the Federal CU Act to multiple group credit unions. The new allowance would enable more than 1,000 community charters to add underserved communities too.
But like efforts to increase the cap on member business loans and allow credit unions to raise alternative capital, the move to extend the underserved expansions has long been stalled by opposition from bankers, who see it as new encroachments on their markets. The proposal to allow community chartered credit unions to add underserved communities has been included in legislation several times, but has never been passed by Congress.
Woinarowicz Named To Lead
Arrowhead's Turnaround
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.-NCUA has hired Darin Woinarowicz, the CFO at Kern Schools FCU, as permanent CEO at Arrowhead Central CU, the one-time $1-billion CU that's been under NCUA conservatorship since June 2010. Woinarowicz has played a key role in the turnaround of the once-troubled KSFCU.
