Your Deposits Are Safe and Secure!
Recently you may have heard about the bank failures in California and found yourself asking a lot of questions.  Is your money safe?  How much insurance coverage do I have on my account(s)?  It is important to note that these failed banks were deeply involved in sub prime mortgage lending and had very little capital. Risky mortgages that were made, and the current housing market, resulted in some serious financial problems for them.

As a whole, credit unions are healthy, with strong balance sheets:

• Credit unions are well capitalized. Their overall capital-to-asset ratio stands at a very solid 11.1% (compared to 10% for banks). In dollars, that’s a capital cushion of $90 billion.
• Credit union mortgage delinquencies at the end of the first quarter stood at only 0.7%. First mortgage charge-offs were a miniscule 0.06%.
• More broadly, credit union loan delinquencies have edged up, but still are at a very low 1.0%.

Credit unions are a safe harbor for consumer savings:

• Savings at credit unions so far this year have grown nearly 7%. In today’s economy, consumers are increasing their savings in response to concerns about their economic future.
• More people seeking to put their money in a stable source offering good rates are turning to credit unions.
• Consumers saved $10.9 billion last year by using credit unions rather than banks. The savings come in the form of lower fees, higher savings rates and lower loan rates. That works out to about $126 per credit union member or $239 per household.

Federal insurance covers credit unions, too:

• All credit unions are federally insured by a fund that, like the FDIC, is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
• As the FDIC does for banks, the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF) insures a person’s savings up to at least $250,000, with higher total coverage available if the member has a combination of individual, joint, trust, payable-on-death and other types of accounts; there is also separate insurance coverage of up to $250,000 for individual retirement accounts.  Click here to visit the NCUA’s Web site.