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The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises. Over the years, events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession during the 2000s have led to the expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a United States government corporation supplying deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks. The FDIC was created by the Banking Act of 1933, enacted during the Great Depression to restore trust in the American banking system. More than one-third of banks failed in the years before the FDIC's creation, and bank runs were common. The insurance limit was initially US$2,500 per ownership category, and this was increased several times over the years. Since the enactment of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, the FDIC insures deposits in member banks up to $250,000 per ownership category. FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the government of the United States of America, and according to the FDIC, "since its start in 1933 no depositor has ever lost a penny of FDIC-insured funds".
Financial regulation is a form of regulation or supervision, which subjects financial institutions to certain requirements, restrictions and guidelines, aiming to maintain the stability and integrity of the financial system. This may be handled by either a government or non-government organization. Financial regulation has also influenced the structure of banking sectors by increasing the variety of financial products available. Financial regulation forms one of three legal categories which constitutes the content of financial law, the other two being market practices and case law.
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provision of credit, and other financial services. In several African countries, credit unions are commonly referred to as SACCOs.
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is a government-backed insurer of credit unions in the United States, one of two agencies that provide deposit insurance to depositors in U.S. depository institutions, the other being the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures commercial banks and savings institutions. The NCUA is an independent federal agency created by the United States Congress to regulate, charter, and supervise federal credit unions. With the backing of the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, the NCUA operates and manages the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, insuring the deposits of more than 124 million account holders in all federal credit unions and the overwhelming majority of state-chartered credit unions. Besides the Share Insurance Fund, the NCUA operates three other funds: the NCUA Operating Fund, the Central Liquidity Facility (CLF), and the Community Development Revolving Loan Fund (CDRLF). The NCUA Operating Fund, with the Share Insurance Fund, finances the agency's operations.
A corporate credit union, also known as a central credit union, provides services to natural person (consumer) credit unions. In the credit union industry, they are sometimes referred to as "the credit union’s credit union". In the United States, corporate credit unions may either be chartered by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), or under state authority if permitted under that state's financial services laws.
U.S. Central Federal Credit Union was the largest corporate credit union in the United States. Unlike consumer driven credit unions, U.S. Central provided its services only to other corporate credit unions, in effect acting as the "corporate credit union's credit union". The organization was founded in 1974. The organization had to be shut down in 2009 as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. Eventually, Credit Suisse was forced to pay $400 million to resolve claims that it sold faulty mortgage-backed securities to U.S. Central Federal Credit Union.
The Federal Credit Union Act is an Act of Congress enacted in 1934. The purpose of the law was to make credit available and promote thrift through a national system of nonprofit, cooperative credit unions. This Act established the federal credit union system and created the Bureau of Federal Credit Unions, the predecessor to the National Credit Union Administration, to charter and oversee federal credit unions. The general provisions in the Federal Act were based on the Massachusetts Credit Union Act of 1909, and became the basis of many other state credit union laws. Under the provisions of the Federal Credit Union Act, a credit union may be chartered under either federal or state law, a system known as dual chartering, which is still in existence today.
The National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund provides deposit insurance to protect the accounts of credit union members at federally insured institutions in the United States. Created in 1970, the Share Insurance Fund is administered by the National Credit Union Administration, an independent federal financial regulator. The Share Insurance Fund is funded completely by participating credit unions, and not one penny of insured savings has ever been lost by a member of a federally insured credit union. The Share Insurance Fund is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.
In September 2008 the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that it would take over the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. Both government-sponsored enterprises, which finance home mortgages in the United States by issuing bonds, had become illiquid as the market for those bonds collapsed in the subprime mortgage crisis. The FHFA established conservatorships in which each enterprise's management works under the FHFA's direction to reduce losses and to develop a new operating structure that will allow a return to self-management.
The NCUA Corporate Stabilization Program was created on January 28, 2009, in response to investment losses incurred at U.S. Central Credit Union. U.S. Central was a third-level corporate credit union that provided services to other corporate credit unions, which in turn served public-facing credit unions.
Credit unions in the United States served 100 million members, comprising 43.7% of the economically active population, in 2014. U.S. credit unions are not-for-profit, cooperative, tax-exempt organizations. The clients of the credit unions become partners of the financial institution and their presence focuses in certain neighborhoods because they center their services in one specific community. As of March 2020, the largest American credit union was Navy Federal Credit Union, serving U.S. Department of Defense employees, contractors, and families of servicepeople, with over $125 billion in assets and over 9.1 million members. Total credit union assets in the U.S. reached $1 trillion as of March 2012. Approximately 236,000 people were directly employed by credit unions per data derived from the 2012 National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Credit Union Directory. As of 2019, there were 5,236 federally insured credit unions with 120.4 million members, and deposits of $1.22 trillion.
The Credit Union Membership Access Act is an Act for the United States government that amended the Federal Credit Union Act in 1998. The bill was proposed on the heels of the Supreme Court decision in NCUA v. First National Bank & Trust against the National Credit Union Administration, a key victory in the American Bankers Association's legislative agenda and a major setback to credit unions. The Act reversed this ruling, authorizing credit unions to have multiple common bonds among their memberships.
Western Bridge Corporate Federal Credit Union, or WesCorp, was a financial services cooperative headquartered in San Dimas, California. As a corporate credit union, WesCorp provided services to natural person (consumer) credit unions. WesCorp served America's credit union industry as an aggregator of financial products and services for the purpose of delivering cost-savings and greater efficiencies to more than 950 member/owner credit unions throughout the United States.
This article details the history of banking in the United States. Banking in the United States is regulated by both the federal and state governments.
Deborah "Debbie" Matz is an American civil servant who served as the 8th Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration.
Michael E. Fryzel is an American attorney with offices in Chicago, Illinois. Following the 2016 general election, Fryzel served on President Donald J. Trump's Transition Team and developed the Agency Action Plan for the National Credit Union Administration.
John Mark McWatters is a lawyer, accountant and former Board Member of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). He was appointed by President Donald Trump on June 23, 2017, to serve as the tenth Board Chairman of the NCUA, and resigned from the NCUA Board on November 20, 2020.
References
- ↑ "National Credit Union Administration - Central Liquidity Facility". Archived from the original on May 14, 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
- ↑ "Title III—Central Liquidity Facility" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on June 7, 2007. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
- ↑ "Section 501(l)". Internal Revenue Code. Legal Information Institute. Cornell University Law School. Retrieved June 21, 2017.
This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government. Archived from the original on 2008-05-14.