Newsroom

April 25, 2017

NCUA grants federal charter, MBL designation

The NCUA yesterday announced it has granted a charter and federal share insurance for Firefighters First Federal Credit Union of Los Angeles and approved the credit union's request to be designated as being chartered for the purpose of granting member business loans.

The NCUA's action is a significant move that demonstrates the importance of credit union lending to member small businesses, said NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger.

"Credit unions were created to provide their members a source of credit for provident and productive purposes, and helping members obtain the means to establish small businesses is a critical part of that mission," said Berger.

"NAFCU supports credit unions' efforts to ensure all their members have the resources and tools they need to achieve their goals," Berger continued. "We support NCUA's action and are committed to ensuring a regulatory environment that is friendly to credit union member business lending."

The NCUA said Firefighters First will serve the 510,000 employees and independent contractors who work in the fire protection industry in the United States. The credit union was originally chartered in 1935 by the state of California as the Los Angeles Firemen's Credit Union. It obtained federal insurance in 1975 but converted to private insurance in 1984 and changed its name to Firefighters First Credit Union in 2014.

Prior to its conversion to a federal charter, Firefighters First served 37,000 members and had $1.18 billion in assets, making it one of the largest single-common-bond federal credit unions in the United States.

Firefighters First's charter became effective April 18.