WASHINGTON — Federal Housing Finance Board Member Geoff Bacino,a former NCUA Board member, expressed his hopes that credit unionswill take greater advantage of what the Federal Home Loan Bankshave to offer.

“What's disconcerting is that they are not using the Banks asfrequently as other charters,” he observed of the credit unioncommunity. Bacino pointed out that just 868 of approximately 8,000credit unions are Federal Home Loan Bank members, while 1,251thrifts of 1,300 total are members and 5,890 of 7,400 banks areFHLB members.

However, he stated with a positive attitude, “Credit unions makeup the smallest percentage but that gives you room to grow.”

Bacino added that mortgages make up 50% of credit unions' loanportfolios yet their FHLB participation is only about 1%.Additionally, he pointed out that credit unions only hold about2.67% of the total advances from the FHLBs, totaling $632billion.

He urged credit unions to look more to the FHLBs for liquiditymanagement, particularly considering depository institutions' highportfolio concentration in mortgages. His written remarks pointedout that some thrifts have mortgage-to-asset ratios of 85% to 90%,and can do so safely and soundly with help from the housinggovernment sponsored enterprises.

John Forlines, vice president of single-family credit riskmanagement at Fannie Mae, also encouraged the credit union group touse the GSEs. Fannie Mae, he pointed out, even has two employeesspecifically to work with credit unions. Fannie Mae also has astrategic relationship with Prime Alliance Solutions through 2015and offers credit unions benefits through an alliance with NAFCUthrough 2009.

Also, when working with Fannie Mae, credit unions have access toDesktop Underwriter, an automated tool that helps institutionsevaluate a borrower's ability and willingness to repay. Inaddition, he said, “One of the key features is it does have someanti-fraud tools.” The program actually looks for inflatedappraisals and false Social Security numbers, he explained.

“We can provide an indicative value of your conforming mortgageportfolio,” he added during NCUA Vice Chairman Rodney Hood's RiskMitigation Summit Jan. 11.

Ginnie Mae President Rob Couch–the Government National MortgageAssociation–noted that Ginnie Mae's market share had been steadilydeclining, but has now experienced nine straight months ofportfolio growth. He was looking to credit unions to continue tobolster that growth while mitigating risk in their own balancesheets. –[email protected]