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Find a Local Credit Union and Assess Its Safety

George Washington's picture




 

In support of Huffington Post's call for people to move our money from the giant banks to community banks and credit unions:

  • Here is a site which lets you find local credit unions
  • Here is a site which rates the safety of banks, thrifts and credit unions
  • And here is another site which rates the safety of credit unions

As USA Today pointed out in August 2008:

Credit unions are regulated by the National Credit Union
Administration, or NCUA, or by state agencies. The NCUA oversees the
safety and soundness of all credit unions.

If you want to check up on your credit union, make sure it's federally
insured by the NCUA and look at its finances, you can do that any time.
Go to the NCUA's website at www.ncua.gov,
click on the "Credit Union Data" link on the left-hand side of the page
below where it says Data and Services. Next, click on the Find a Credit
Union link, type in the credit union's name and click the Find button.

 

You
can then choose to view the Financial Performance Report or the
official regulatory document, called the 5300 report. This report will
tell you how well capitalized the credit union is and even let you see
how many of the loans are going bad.

 

What
about your asset protection? Credit unions are backed by the NCUA,
through the NCU Share Insurance Fund, which is backed by the U.S.
government. Individual accounts are backed up to $100,000, with
additional coverage up to $250,000 for certain retirement accounts.
Joint accounts may qualify for coverage of up to $200,000.

 

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Thu, 12/31/2009 - 11:08 | 178790 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

What is a good option for a brokerage account if you move your checking/saving to a credit union? I have a bundled acct w/ a zombie, including my brokerage.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 15:45 | 179258 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

This is no recommendation, but EverBank might help at least as a transition. I have no idea what their rating is but they have a wide variety of account types.

The main thing is to get your money out of the zombie, even if you have to bury it at a GPS coordinate in your back yard.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 10:18 | 178755 Pondmaster
Pondmaster's picture

Been with the same Credit Union for 28 yrs . No problems yet . All loans for cars and homes , even the old home as ATM to buy second home . I recommend credit unions highly . Happy New Year all !!

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 09:22 | 178732 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

It looks like the NCUA web page says that accounts are insured up to 250K until EOY 2013 (http://www.ncua.gov/news/press_releases/2009/MR09-0526.htm). Am i missing something here?

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 12:20 | 178924 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

No, NCUA received authority to expand coverage to match the FDIC 250K limit to prevent them from being at a competitive disadvantage.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 09:07 | 178727 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

I switched from the big evil to the local credit union. It is nice to not be so knee jerk and use common sense when lending to a small business.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 08:49 | 178724 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Great, the credit union I use has only one star.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 07:59 | 178720 Atoyota
Atoyota's picture

Thanks George

Just posted it to the facebook site 'Move your Money' as well as my wall.

I was concerned that those who decided to take action against big banks would move their money to another problem bank.

This should help.

 

Thanks again...

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 07:46 | 178716 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Suze Orman has been promoting credit union credit cards for their ethical pricing behavior.
http://www.suzeorman.com/igsbase/igstemplate.cfm?SRC=DB&SRCN=&GnavID=84&...

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 06:19 | 178702 Renfield
Renfield's picture

If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.
- Sun Tzu

I look at HuffPo now and then to see what the mainstream is thinking.

Sounds like they're beginning to clue in as to who their enemy actually is.

I wonder how long it will take before the USA and Great Britain decide actually to protect their people, not from imaginary 'terr'ists', but against the real enemies of the state.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 06:07 | 178699 Silver_Bullet
Silver_Bullet's picture

Very good advice.  Reminds me of similar things advocated by Catherine Austin Fitts about removing money from Wall St and moving it back to Main St.  Investing money in small local banks will cause local investment in your town.  Anything put into Wall St will simply be used to delay the asset deflation of the derivatives bubble, and will be put to nefarious uses.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 05:30 | 178691 merehuman
merehuman's picture

 Thank you!

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