The National Credit Union Administration is a US government agency that regulates and supervises credit unions. They also operate and manage the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF), which provides share insurance coverage for credit union members against losses should the credit union fail. The NCUSIF provides all members of federally insured credit unions with $250,000 in coverage for their single ownership accounts.
So pretty much the same coverage, just a different agency.
> The NCUA is an independent agency that oversees the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF). This federal insurance fund, backed by the U.S. government, insures member savings in federally insured credit unions. Deposits at federally chartered credit unions are automatically insured by the NCUA, but state-chartered credit unions can opt for NCUA insurance too. Some 98% of U.S. credit unions are federally insured. To find out if your credit union is one of them, ask a representative or look for the official NCUA insurance logo in its offices or on its website.
It is a different organization entirely. Functionally it is declared the same in all the googling that I've done, but in practice, are they? I don't know, and personally, I don't really want to find out.
This post made me chuckle. It's basically: I don't know about it, therefore it's scary!
But like, what do you know about the FDIC that you don't know about the NCUA? I suspect to most people they're both just opaque blobs of the US Federal government that insure deposits up to $250,000, and that's the limit of most people's understanding of either organization. If you're not confident in the NCUA, I'm not sure what extra information you could possibly have that would make you suddenly confident in the FDIC.
What's wrong with that? Seriously, belittling someone because they don't know about something, so therefore they'd rather avoid it, doesn't seem right either.
I know about FDIC. I understand the rules. My bank has a great explainer on their website about the coverage. I don't know anything about NCUA and I don't care to learn, because I'm already protected at the bank that I'm at.
> I know about FDIC. I understand the rules. My bank has a great explainer on their website about the coverage. I don't know anything about NCUA and I don't care to learn,
The rules are pretty much the same. A credit union is likely to have the same kind of explainer that tells you the same stuff, except there's magic words like 'share account' instead of 'savings account' and 'member' instead of 'account holder'. And credit unions have to have some 'affinity' requirement. Most credit unions these days just have a geographic requirement (live, work, or worship in a list of counties), but some require a connection to some company or organization, but for otherwise national credit unions, there's often a 'loophole' way to get affiliated; you can often make a trivial one-time donation to become a member of an affiliate supporting organization and then get into the credit union. There's a little bit of smoke and mirrors there, to support the creative fiction that credit unions aren't just banks, but they pretty much are. Just like banks, some are good and some are bad, some will fail in the near future, some won't, and deposits under the $250k threshold are explicitly insured. Updates to rules that affect banks usually lead to updates that affect credit unions, but it sometimes takes a little while longer.
You'll also get notices about board of supervisors elections, which you won't for a bank with stockholders, but might get for a mutual bank.
It’s wrong because you weren’t just trying to avoid it personally; you were trying to scare others away by confidently declaring a problem (“a big one”) while knowing you were ignorant about it.
Yes, the NCUA enforces regulatory standards including auditing for credit unions to remain insured.
Actually in many ways the NCUA is a bit more open about their work.
Here's the NCUA informing all credit unions back in 2022 that risk assessments are changing to factor in the sharp rising interest rates affecting asset values.
FDIC insurance just means that, if a bank fails, the government will make depositors whole up to a certain amount--printing the money to do so if necessary. NCUA provides exactly the same guarantee to credit union depositors. I see no reason to be any less confident in the NCUA guarantee than the FDIC guarantee; ultimately both are subject to the same risk, that the government will not be politically capable of either raising or printing enough money to make depositors whole in the event of a major financial crash.
Credit unions are subject to essentially the same capitalization requirements as banks---they're regulated by NCUA, but NCUA's capitalization requirements are largely harmonized with those of other bank regulators. It's important to understand that banks themselves are not all regulated by the same agency, with bank regulation split between FDIC, OCC, and the FRS depending on the bank (this is mostly unrelated to FDIC insurance which applies to depository financial institutions regulated by OCC and the FRS as well). These different regulators all apply somewhat different supervision methodologies, with the result that banks do indeed "shop around" for a regulator that they feel will work the best as a long-term relationship. But the overall capitalization ratio requirements are mostly the same at 7-10% being well-capitalized depending on calculation method.
But this discussion is more about insurance, not capital reserves. Credit unions are required to hold insurance (coverage) on their deposits just like banks, with the same cap of $250,000 per account. Most, but not all, credit unions are insured by NCUA, backed by the US government. All federally chartered credit unions are insured by NCUA, but state-chartered credit unions are not necessarily required to be. The majority of state-chartered credit unions are also insured by NCUA, but they have the option of obtaining their insurance by other means, and some choose to use private insurers like American Share Insurance. These private insurers are usually backed by a huge reinsurer and so the risk of them not meeting their obligations is low, but arguably higher than NCUA. On the flipside, private share insurers sometimes offer higher coverage limits than NCUA. It's mostly a minor issue though as credit unions covered by other than NCUA are uncommon, and NCUA-insured credit unions prominently post the NCUA logo. Similarly, non-NCUA credit unions are required to disclose their insurer.
Federally-chartered credit unions usually use "Federal" in their name although some don't use it in their general advertising and logotype any more. State-chartered credit unions only exist in some states, but California charters credit unions and as you'd imagine there are quite a few examples in that state. There are even "dual-chartered" credit unions in some states that hold charters from both state and federal governments. This is the norm in e.g. Washington due to some banking regulation history. Older credit unions are more likely to be state-chartered as the federal system is newer than most state systems, but credit unions didn't really take off until the Federal Credit Union Act so there's still not that many of them.
So pretty much the same coverage, just a different agency.