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The NCUA Board yesterday voted unanimously to issue a proposed rule that would remove numerous field-of-membership restrictions for all charter types. NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger welcomed the proposal and the opportunity to work with the agency to ensure important regulatory relief.

"NAFCU applauds the NCUA Board for proposing the most comprehensive field-of-membership reform initiative that the industry has seen in over a decade," said NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger. "As commerce and consumer behavior continue to rapidly evolve with innovative technologies, we are pleased to see that the agency listened to our member credit unions' suggestions on how to keep pace with today's marketplace," he said.

Berger added, "NAFCU is carefully reviewing the proposal and we look forward to working with NCUA to ensure that this rule provides requisite regulatory relief for federal credit unions."

The proposal released Thursday would ease current rule restrictions on community common bonds, single common bonds and multiple-common bonds. Changes would, among other things:

• update the definition of multiple common bond to ease the process of adding new groups to the charter;
• increase the pool of potential credit union members by expanding the areas that may be served by a community charter;
• update the definition of an underserved area;
• change the definition of rural district from a population of 250,000 to up to 1 million people; and
• expand the definition of a trade, industry or profession (TIP) charter as a single common bond.

NAFCU will prepare a Regulatory Alert for members requesting comments on this proposal.