Sponsors Give CURIA a Face Lift for 110th Congress

WASHINGTON — While CURIA has essentially the same provisions as previous versions some of the details have been tweaked.

For example, the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act (H.R. 1537)–introduced March 15 with 12 co-sponsors–still has a provision to provide credit unions with a modern risk-based capital structure. However, each capital category has been increased 25 basis points. In addition, a 10% risk-based capital ratio for well-capitalized credit unions was included where it had only been 8% for “well-capitalized” credit unions in previous versions of CURIA. The risk-based ratio was set at 8% for “adequately capitalized” and “undercapitalized” credit unions and 6% for “significantly undercapitalized”. “When a credit union’s capital deposit to the [NCUSIF] (equal to 1% of insured deposits) is added to these ratios, the result would equal or exceed the current leverage and total risk-based capital requirements for well-capitalized FDIC-insured banks and thrift institutions,” a congressional summary read.