NCUA Final Rule on Share Insurance Signs for Shared Branching

CUNA
March 31, 2009 | COMMENTS

The NCUA Board approved a final rule to amend the share insurance sign requirements for federally insured credit unions participating in shared branching networks. For tellers accepting share deposits for both federally insured and nonfederally insured credit unions, there must be a second sign adjacent to the official NCUA insurance sign. Until now, the second sign was required to list each federally insured credit union served by the teller, along with a statement that only these credit unions are federally insured.

The final rule will replace the required list of credit unions with a general statement that must read as follows:

This credit union participates in a shared branch network with other credit unions and accepts share deposits for members of those other credit unions. While this credit union is federally insured, not all of these other credit unions are federally insured. If you need information on the insurance status of your credit union, please contact your credit union directly.

The final rule recognizes the burden of the previous version of this second sign for those shared branch networks that are national in scope, which may serve thousands of individual credit unions. This often resulted in lengthy signs that needed to be updated frequently.

Under the final rule, the revised second sign must be similar to the current official NCUA sign in terms of design, color, and font. NCUA will produce signs that meet these new requirements and will make them available at a reasonable cost. Credit unions may also produce their own signs, as long as they meet the requirements of this rule.

The final rule also clarifies that tellers in nonfederally insured credit union branches may accept deposits for federally insured credit unions as part of a shared branching network. However, these credit union branches may not display the official NCUA sign and there would, therefore, be no need to display the second sign.

The final rule will be effective as of April 3, 2009.

If you have any questions or need a copy of the final rule, please feel free to contact Senior Vice President & Deputy General Counsel Mary Dunn at mdunn@cuna.com or Senior Assistant General Counsel Jeff Bloch at jbloch@cuna.com or by telephone at (800) 356-9655, extension 6736 or 6732. You may also access the rule here.

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