NCUA Board Meeting Summary

by. Mary Dunn, CUNA Deputy General Counsel

Quarterly reports on the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF) and Temporary Corporate Credit Union Stabilization Fund (TCCUSF) were the only items considered at the NCUA Board meeting today. The NCUSIF update mirrors the optimistic trends the credit union system is experiencing.  Overall, the number of CAMEL 3, 4, and 5 credit unions has decreased, and the dollar amount of insured shares in these institutions has also  diminished,  indicating  that  credit  unions  are  performing  measurably better than last quarter.  NCUA staff reported that the NCUSIF’s equity ratio increased slightly to 1.31% as of March 31, 2013, but is expected to revert to 1.30% at the June 2013 update, at which time the capitalization deposit will be expensed.  The ending reserve balance was $330 million; $13 million of which is allocated to specific credit unions.

As of March 31, 2013, there were 339 CAMEL 4 and 5 credit unions, which represent 1.79% of insured shares, or approximately $15 billion.   These numbers are also better than the last quarter of 2012, when there were 369 CAMEL 4 and 5 credit unions, which represented 2.02% of insured shares and approximately $16.9 billion.   NCUA staff noted that there were 1,558 CAMEL 3 credit unions, which represent 12.10% of insured shares, or $101.6 billion.   This is a slight decrease from 1,571 CAMEL 3 credit unions and a drop from 12.68% of insured shares and approximately $105.9 billion at the end of 2012.

Combined insured shares in CAMEL 3, 4, and 5 credit unions represent approximately 13.89% of total insured shares, down from 14.6% at year-end 2012 and 19.2% at year-end 2011.  There were 4 total credit union failures in the first quarter of 2013 with a cost of $75,000 to the NCUSIF, which appears to be a slower rate based on the 22 total credit union failures in 2012.  There were 16 failures in 2011 and 28 during 2010.