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The NCUA Board today finalized a NAFCU-sought rule to further reform field-of-membership (FOM) rules, as well as a rule to amend voluntary mergers procedures. NAFCU has pushed NCUA's efforts to modernize FOM in order to allow credit unions to serve more consumers.

"NAFCU and our member credit unions thank Chairman [J. Mark] McWatters and Board Member [Rick] Metsger for recognizing the importance of modernizing FOM rules to give credit unions the opportunity to keep growing and serve even more Americans," said NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger. "We support the provisions contained in this second FOM rule and will continue to support the agency's first rule that is still being challenged by the bankers. We believe these FOM reforms fall well within the agency's legal authority.

"Despite some positive changes from the proposal, we are still concerned about the potential impact of the agency's final voluntary mergers rule. While we support increased transparency and disclosure, the rule could create unnecessary and troublesome roadblocks for responsible credit union mergers," Berger added.

The FOM rule amends community charter FOM requirements, allows for an increase of the population limit on a well-defined local community in some circumstances and changes Core-Based Statistical Area requirements.

The voluntary mergers rule requires additional compensation disclosures and procedures for more member-to-member communications.

NAFCU is doing a comprehensive review the final rules and will provide more details to credit unions shortly.