The National Credit Union Administration has designated Cleveland as an area underserved by financial institutions, allowing a credit union there to expand its pool of potential members citywide.
It is the latest big city to gain the designation since the credit union regulator in recent months revived a program to expand the areas it labels as underserved.
The NCUA said Friday that it had approved a request from Cleveland's Steel Valley Federal Credit Union to consider virtually the entire city and its suburbs to be an underserved community. This lets the credit union offer membership to any of the 578,000 residents of the area.
Cleveland joined Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Baltimore, Tucson, Washington and Miami in the officially underserved category.
