ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A new low-income credit union has been chartered in the South Bronx, a deeply impoverished part of New York City.
The NCUA announced that it granted the charter to the New Covenant Dominion Federal Credit Union. The credit union will serve the over 1,000 members of the New Covenant Christian Church and students at the Church's schools.
NCUA also recognized the new CU as a low-income credit union, which will allow it to accept nonmember deposits and to qualify for loans and technical assistance from the agency.
Recommended For You
The credit union plans to offer basic financial services and financial education, NCUA said. The Church has four separate churches in the Bronx, as well as a network of schools, the agency said.
Bishop Joseph Alexander, the leader of the New Covenant Christian Church, said the faith community had been working for more than eight years to bring everything together for the credit union to start.
"With all the meetings and different hurdles and things we had to decide and do, that's just how long it took," Alexander said. "But we persisted because we never had a doubt that this was something worth doing."
Alexander said the low-income designation will mean the CU will be able to serve people in the surrounding communities as well and that the new credit union had already begun to receive support from local businesses and would be investigating making itself available to banks for help as part of their community reinvestment plans.
"A lot of this is new to us," he said, "but we want to pursue every opportunity because we are part of a community which surely needs the help".
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
