How Much Do CU Failures Cost: Who Knows?

If you are interested in finding information about the cost of an individual credit union failure to the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF), sorry Charlie – you are largely out of luck.

You may find a press release announcing the credit union failure; but the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) does not disclose information about the impact of a failure on the NCUSIF unless the failure is expensive enough to warrant a Material Loss Review by the Inspector General Office. Unfortunately, there is a long time lag between a credit union failure and the release of the Inspector General report.

In comparison, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) post on its website the estimated cost of each bank failure to its insurance fund.

There is not any compelling policy reason for NCUA to keep this information from the public and the credit unions it insures.

I’ve spoken with the General Counsel at NCUA about making this information publicly available on the NCUA’s website. But I wouldn’t bet the ranch on NCUA doing the responsible thing and making this information publicly available.