ARLINGTON, Va. – Not surprisingly, NAFCU has written to support a proposal from the Federal Trade Commission's proposed rules for how much disclosure privately insured financial depository institutions should have to make. Under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991, the proposed disclosures would require non-federally insured depository institutions to disclose their lack of federal insurance to their depositors and would prohibit these same institutions from accepting deposits from consumers who have not acknowledged in writing that the institution lacks federal insurance. NAFCU's letter pointed to a General Accounting Office report that found that many privately insured credit unions do not make it clear enough that they are, in fact, privately insured. "Without advance notice of an institution's insured status, a consumer cannot make an informed decision about the risks involved in entrusting his or her funds for safekeeping, NAFCU wrote in its June 14 letter. "NAFCU therefore believes that such an important decision should only be made with the full knowledge afforded by the proposed disclosures to be imposed on all non- federally insured depository institutions." The FTC had suggested that privately insured institutions might not have to make as many disclosures to customers who were depositing more than $100,000 at a time since those customers, presumably, would be savvy enough to know about the difference between private and federal insurance. But NAFCU differed, arguing that many depositors don't know the difference no matter how much is deposited. "NAFCU has heard from federal credit unions that have had members with deposits over $100,000 who did not understand how their funds were insured. Also, NAFCU is concerned that a consumer who is depositing an amount greater than $100,000 in a non-federally insured institution may mistakenly assume that the first $100,000 is federally insured because he/she has received no disclosure to indicate otherwise," NAFCU wrote.