LAS VEGAS — NCUA's Office of Small Credit Union Initiatives has undertaken an "impact study" to determine how effective it has been in working with small CUs.
OSCUI director Bill Myers, speaking here as part of NAFCU's annual convention, told a small-CU roundtable event that the group began the study this past spring. He said OSCUI is currently finishing gathering its data for the report and doing analysis — a process it expects to finish by sometime this fall — after which it will convene peers to discuss the report and hopefully issue the findings in spring 2015.
The report comes after OSCUI has expanded its services for small CUs to include offerings such as webinars on multiple topics, "CEO boot camps," online videos, consulting, on-site assistance, grants and loans, and more. Myers said that utilization of OSCUI resources grew exponentially between 2012 and 2013 as it rolled out more online offerings.
In January 2013, NCUA expanded its definition of a "small" credit union from $10 million in assets or less to $50 million or less, a move which dramatically expanded the number of credit unions eligible to utilize OSCUI programs and resources. Credit unions with low-income designations are also eligible, even if they are larger than $50 million.
Myers also said that NCUA's definition of what constitutes a "small" credit union may go up again early next year, noting that many trade groups have urged the regulator to increase the asset limit. The potential for the asset class to go up lies in a provision of the regulation that increased the limit from $10 million to $50 million, which said the topic had to be revisited in two years, which would occur in early 2015. After that, said Myers, the threshold is set to be reviewed every three years as part of a rolling review of all NCUA regs.
