WASHINGTON-Making credit union efforts known nationwide, NCUA Chairman Dennis Dollar gave an interview for a Comcast/CNN Headline News segment on the success of the agency's Access Across America initiative. The six-minute interview, taped recently at Comcast's Washington, D.C. studios, will air in major cities across the U.S. where Comcast cable system operates local CNN Headline News segments. Dollar highlighted the role of credit unions in meeting the financial needs of over 80 million Americans, providing access to affordable financial services to underserved and "unbanked" communities, the role of faith-based credit unions, and NCUA's efforts to facilitate an increase in financial self-sufficiency and homeownership across the country through increased access to lower-cost financial services. "Because credit unions are not-for-profit, they have the opportunity to go into many of these communities and really make a difference to offer an alternative to the pawn shop's loan and the check casher's loan or the payday loan that some of the residents are paying four- and five- and 600% for," Dollar told Comcast Local Edition Anchor Carolyn Black-Sotir. He pointed out that more than 40 million people have become eligible for credit union membership under the Access Across America initiative and that more than 650 underserved areas have been adopted since it began. While providing lower-cost banking is a noble goal, Dollar added, "Also, it's important that credit unions be there to provide access to homeownership that they might not have otherwise or a chance for financial self-sufficiency, which is the key to the American Dream."