HAVERHILL, Mass. — The Massachusetts credit union which seeks to merge with a state chartered mutual bank is consulting with NCUA over whether the agency's charter conversion regulations will necessarily apply to their situation.
Massachusetts has a law on the books for some time that allows state chartered credit unions to merge with state chartered mutual banks and has procedures for doing so, but the CU and the lawyer that is handling the merger said the institution will ask NCUA about which procedures it should follow.
"We are not a charter conversion in the strict sense of the word," maintained Peter DiBenedetto, CEO of Northeast. "We're different in Massachusetts; we do things differently up here."
Recommended For You
The CU points to a sentence in the commentary to the agency's most recent conversion regulations where NCUA appears to acknowledge that its conversion regulations do not really apply to mergers between CUs and banks. "The FCUA permits credit unions to merge into banks, but a rulemaking specific to those conversions is also beyond the scope of this rulemaking," the agency said in its commentary to the most recent conversion regulation.
For now the agency would only say that it would evaluate Northeast's application "at the appropriate time," noting that the agency had seen nothing formally from the CU yet.
© 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.
