NEW YORK – Fitch Ratings Senior Director Ken Ritz said natural person credit unions concerned about U.S. Central should pay closer attention to the corporate's Issuer Default Rating, rather than institution's Individual Rating, which tumbled from an "A" to a "D".
The Individual Rating measures the bare-bones credit worthiness of an entity, separate from external support. That's not the reality at U.S. Central, which Ritz said is "buoyed by support that we expect to come, and has thus far, from the NCUA"; that support is considered in an entity's long- and short-term IDR ratings.
"To the extent that actions are taken or not taken that indicate that support could go away, that could impact long term and short term ratings," Ritz said. "But at this point, we've always expected that external support would come to U.S. Central."
Recommended For You
However, Ritz did stress there are some fundamental weaknesses at U.S. Central, and said the corporate is "exposed to significant losses that could impair capital, and its ability to generate capital in the future."
U.S. Central declined an interview request, providing instead a short release that stated the rating "in no way impacts U.S. Central's ability to serve the investment and correspondent services needs of its members."
© 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.
