PRESS RELEASE
December 19, 2007
ARLINGTON, Va. — In response to a request from Congress, NASCUS presents the findings of a state credit union data collection effort in a new report released today.
NASCUS was asked by former Representative Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), past chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to provide information on how state-chartered credit unions use their tax-exempt status to serve members.
The results are presented in the NASCUS report: NASCUS Survey of the State Credit Union System. The report is based on data collected by state regulators from a representative sample of state-chartered credit unions.
“The full participation and cooperative effort of state regulators to complete the Congressional request resulted in an accurate and objective response about dual chartering and the state credit union system,” said NASCUS President and CEO Mary Martha Fortney. “NASCUS is appreciative of the active participation and valued expertise of state regulators and state-chartered credit unions throughout this process.”
Using accepted statistical methods, an expert statistician selected state credit unions for the NASCUS Survey representing different fields of membership, asset sizes and communities to create a representative sample of the nation’s state-chartered credit unions.
The NASCUS Survey responded to the Committee’s four areas of inquiry: membership, executive compensation, unrelated business income tax (UBIT) and credit union service organizations (CUSOs).
Using various processes, NASCUS analyzed more than 28 million account records. NASCUS confirmed that these records represented accounts held by more than 14 million members of state-chartered credit unions.
Among the findings illustrated in the NASCUS Survey:
• State-chartered credit unions serve their members in a manner consistent with their history as financial cooperatives serving groups based on occupation, association or community, by charging lower loan rates and providing higher return on savings;
• The income state-chartered credit union members is representative of the U.S. population;
• State-chartered credit unions provide a wide variety of needed financial services to the membership they are chartered to serve; and
• Although no state statute, law or regulation specifies that state credit unions shall serve individuals of low and modest means, state-chartered credit unions do reach out and provide financial services to all income groups within their fields of membership, both through pricing and community outreach efforts.
The full report can be downloaded here.
Information
Contact:
Kate Hartig, Director, Communications and Public Affairs,
(703) 528-0669 or kate@nascus.org
The
NASCUS mission is to enhance state credit union
supervision and advocate a safe and sound state
credit union system. Founded in 1965, NASCUS
represents all 48 state and territorial credit
union supervisors and the NASCUS Credit Union
Advisory Council, which is made up of nearly
500 of the nation's more than 3,400 state-chartered
credit unions.
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