ALEXANDRIA, Va. — NCUA Associate General Counsel Sheila Albin told a firm that works on credit union to mutual savings bank conversions that, generally speaking, if a member has provided the credit union an e-mail address, it "must assume the member has consented to receive conversion-related member-to-member communications electronically from the credit union."

"When NCUA revised its MSB conversion rule in December 2006, one purpose of the revision was to improve the flow of information between members on a pending conversion proposal and associated member vote," she wrote. "Toward that end, the rule includes a procedure to facilitate communications between members, through the credit union, as the members prepare to vote."

A member may ask the credit union to communicate with the other members provided the member pays for the communications. The credit union must let all the members know how many members there are and how many accept electronic communications.