The nation’s second-largest credit union said it is publicly disclosing its CAMEL score as a show of transparency to its 1.7 million members.
The $23 billion State Employees’ Credit Union of North Carolina has a CAMEL score of 2 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the best.
The rating system is used by the NCUA and most other regulators – including the North Carolina Credit Union Division – to evaluate the health of credit unions.
SECU said it sought permission to disclose its individual CAMEL score, which are confidential, and the 2 score was in its June 30, 2011, audit report from state regulators.
The NCUA regularly releases information about CAMEL scores without identifying individual credit unions and announced in August it would begin sharing ratings of federally insured state-chartered credit unions with state regulators.
“State Employees’ Credit Union is identified by its member-owners as a trusted provider of financial services. At a time when so many other large financial institutions in the marketplace are not viewed as trustworthy, SECU wants to uphold its positive reputation through full transparency,” Mike Lord, the Raleigh-based credit union’s senior vice president of finance, said in a statement.
“As a large financial institution with more than $10 billion in assets, SECU falls into a size category among financial institutions of which greater disclosure and compliance is and should be expected,” the SECU statement added.
SECU said it also has posted “the unqualified audit opinion rendered by the CPA firm of Clifton Gunderson” on its website and that the CAMEL 2 composite rating “has been typical for SECU over the past 10 years.”
In the statement, Lord added, “We welcome the opportunity to test the value of disclosure of this rating with our members. SECU has traditionally published its ‘capital rating’ each year, and we feel the CAMEL rating may provide additional useful information. SECU remains ‘well-capitalized’ – the highest category – under federal law.”
