A Direct Line Blog

By Donya Parrish, MCU VP–Risk Management

Have you considered expanding your credit union’s field of membership and been unsure if regulators would approve it? Our partner CU Collaborate recently published the blog post How do Underserved Areas, LIDs and CDFI Certifications Differ? It does a great job of explaining the various designations that a credit union might seek when looking to expand its service area. With the number of acronyms in the financial industry, this primer helps sort out a few that could be easily confused.

For a little background, we posted a Sept. 2019 blog describing the work that CUCollaborate assists credit unions with and explaining the benefits our partnership with them offers our member credit unions. All but three of our affiliated credit unions in Montana currently have the low-income designation and five are CDFI certified. With the current NCUA focus on serving more underserved areas and consumers, now might be the time to look at whether another certification or expansion could benefit your credit union.