Conservatorship of U.S. Central and Western Corporate Federal Credit Unions
Date:
March 20, 2009
Policy Area:
Financial Sector Policy
Economic Target:
Financial Institutions
Action Type:
Government Conservatorship
Maximum Amount:
$57.00 billion
Amount Spent:
$5.90 billion
Deficit Impact:
$5.90 billion Takeover of two federal credit unions, US Central and Western Corporate, by regulators of the National Credit Union Administration. On March 20, 2009, both credit unions were placed into conservatorship "to stabilize the corporate credit union system and resolve balance sheet issues." Corporate credit unions do not directly serve customers, but rather play a supporting role for their membership of retail credit unions. US Central has 26 retail corporate credit union members and WesCorp has 1,100 retail credit union members. The NCUA justified the conservatorship because of a continual decline in value of the credit unions' holdings in asset and mortgage-backed securities.
Notes:
Maximum amount is total value of US Central ($34 billion) and WesCorp's ($23 billion) assets. Amount spent and deficit impact are taken from the estimated liabilities of the National Credit Union System Insurance Fund for losses on mortgage-backed securities portfolios at US Central and Western Corporate, as detailed here. Although it is expected that insurance fund losses will eventually be recouped through higher user fees for member credit unions, deficit impact reflects initial insurance fund losses.