FCUs Taking Advantage of New Rural District FOM

Federal credit unions are taking advantage of the new, higher population threshold for a rural district.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) raised the population threshold for a rural district from 250,000 to 1 million. But NCUA eliminated the alternate population limit of 3 percent of the population of the state in which the majority of the rural district members reside.

In May, NCUA approved three rural districts with populations in excess of the old threshold of 250,000. The credit unions are Black Hills FCU (Rapid City, SD), Rocket FCU (McGregor, TX), and Marshland Community FCU (Brunswick, GA).

Under the old rule, the two credit unions in Georgia and Texas could have had rural districts with populations in excess of 250,000; but not exceeding 3 percent of the state's population. However, Black Hills would have been capped at a population limit of 250,000.

In comparison, only 8 federal credit unions between 2013 and 2016 were approved to serve rural districts with populations in excess of 250,000. According to NCUA, the eight credit unions were Red River Employees (Texarkana, TX), MobilOil (Beaumont, TX), Neches (Port Neches, TX), 1st Community (San Angelo, TX), Complex Community (Odessa, TX), Sidney (Sidney, NY), Sun Community (El Centro, CA), and Interstate Unlimited (Jesup, GA).

The final rule went into effect on February 6, 2017.