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Access Across America: "Creating Economic Empowerment For All Walks of Life"
www.accessacrossamerica.gov

Message from the Chairman
The long struggle for some to achieve the American Dream becomes even more of a battle when they have no partner to work with them in dealing with the financial aspects of the journey. The dream of home ownership, saving for a child's college education, or investing for the future seldom is achieved when an individual's primary financial institution is the local pawnshop, title loan company or check-cashing outlet.

Accessing the American Dream can become a reality for many with the empowerment of communities to provide access to lower-cost financial services for folks from all walks of life. Credit unions can be a financial partner of the type many Americans are missing in their struggle for a piece of this nation's economic pie.

It is important that credit unions and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) as regulator/insurer realize that credit unions are part of the solution to this nation's problems of the lack of economic empowerment and growth in what some have come to label as predatory lending. We must work to see that America's credit unions continue their strong performance in meeting these needs. Access Across America will seek to build on our collective efforts to create economic empowerment for people from all walks of life.

Every day, credit unions are providing the access for millions of Americans to reach for the American Dream. NCUA is likewise working daily to make sure that our regulatory process facilitates this outreach within the proper confines of safety and soundness. But the credit union heartbeat for volunteerism and service to the community can be facilitated by the proper regulatory approach and allowed to manifest itself more effectively. That is happening in America's credit unions and NCUA has been an integral part in bringing about these results. We want to see these positive results continue and that is why we initiated Access Across America.

Dennis Dollar
NCUA Chairman Access Across America

Access Across America

The Access Across America initiative is NCUA's restatement of its commitment to promote and facilitate the extension of affordable financial services to individuals and communities across America. Access Across America is partnering with key federal departments and agencies to develop solid opportunities to aid communities across America with the resources and technical assistance to provide much needed financial services, affordable housing, and economic development opportunities.

These efforts are designed to counter the growing predatory lending problem in America. From the service of faith-based and other local credit unions in providing financial assistance for their communities to campus credit unions committed to instilling financial literacy at an age early enough to build upon, America's outpouring of support for service to the underserved communities in our country has never been more important than now.

Access Across America seeks to bring results which demonstrate the value of economic empowerment to people from all walks of life. More details regarding this program can be found at www.accessacrossamerica.gov.

Charter and Insurance Programs
A federal credit union is a financial cooperative chartered by the federal government and owned by its members. Federal credit unions offer members a safe place to save and borrow at reasonable and affordable rates. Surplus income is returned to members in the form of dividends.

Credit unions provide their members with a wide array of financial products and services including consumer loans, home mortgages, savings accounts, checking accounts, Individual Development Accounts, and financial literacy programs.

Federal credit unions are chartered, regulated, and insured by the NCUA, an independent federal agency established by Congress. NCUA is also the federal insurer of approximately 10,000 credit unions in America whose accounts are insured by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund and backed up to $100,000 per insured account by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

Expansions in Underserved Areas
All federal credit unions may include in their field of membership, without regard to location, communities meeting the definition of an underserved area. An underserved area may include the following: a Federal Empowerment Zone, Federal Enterprise Community, or a Designated Investment Area. Approximately 48.5 percent of all federal credit unions are located in investment areas. Many of the nation's "unbanked" population can be found in these investment areas. Since 2001, credit unions have voluntarily adopted more than 25 million potential new members located in underserved areas into their fields of membership and have extended credit union services to those neighborhoods.

Faith-Based & Community Initiatives
Credit unions that have a religious organization as a primary sponsor are viewed as faith-based. Faith-based organizations have sponsored credit unions in the United States since the inception of the credit union movement. Currently there are over 400 faith-based federal credit unions with combined assets totaling more than $2 billion. NCUA continues to promote the opportunities for chartering and expanding faith-based credit unions.

Low-Income Credit Unions
"Low-income" is an official NCUA designation granted to a credit union that serves a membership of which more than half of its members earn less than 80 percent of the average for all wage earners or those members whose annual household income falls at or below 80 percent of the median household income for the nation. Currently, there are over 800 low-income credit unions (state and federally chartered) located across the country (including the territories). For a listing of low-income designated credit unions in your area go to www.ncua.gov.

One of the benefits provided to low-income credit unions is the ability to participate in the Community Development Revolving Loan Fund (Fund) program. The Fund's objective is to foster community development through the improvement of credit union operations and service to members and community. From the inception of the program in 1992, the Fund has provided over 400 technical assistance grants totaling over $2 million.

Small Credit Union Program
The NCUA Board approved a national Small Credit Union Program (SCUP) in 1999. The purpose of the SCUP is to facilitate the Board's goals of promoting the development of financially healthy small and low-income designated credit unions, and encourage the formation of newly chartered credit unions. This voluntary program is designed to provide assistance to credit unions that fall within the following criteria:

1. credit unions with assets under $5 million;
2. newly chartered credit unions in operation less than 10 years and with assets under $10 million; and/or
3. low income designated credit unions.

National Credit Union Administration
There are over 4,000 federally insured credit unions that fall within the above SCUP criteria with over 700 credit unions actively participating in the Small Credit Union Program.

Partnerships with Other Organizations
The Access Across America Program is designed to partner with key federal agencies and other organizations to provide access to affordable financial services to underserved and low-income communities. Examples of partnership activities that have been fostered include:

Department of Agriculture: Credit unions can participate in the USDA Rural Housing Service, Rural Business- Cooperative Service, and the Rural Community Development Initiative.

Community Development Financial Institutions: CDFI has provided many credit unions with several million dollars in awards. A list of certified credit unions and assistance information can be found at www.treas.gov/cdfi.

Department of Housing and Urban Development: HUD has programs for community and economic development ideal for credit union-community partnerships to provide financial literacy, first-time home buying, home improvement, and home ownership counseling programs.

Internal Revenue Service: IRS has embarked on a nationwide partnership initiative to help families with low- to moderate-income build assets and increase financial literacy. This partnership is in conjunction with the IRS' well-established Voluntary Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program initiative.

Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation: NRC is a network of community based organizations that facilitates community-revitalization initiatives. Additional information can be found at www.nw.org.

Small Business Administration: The SBA provides guarantees for business loans. Information regarding SBA programs can be found at www.sba.gov.

Department of the Treasury: The Treasury provided $2.8 million to credit unions through the First Accounts Grant Assistance Program. These grants were provided to institutions that offered low-cost electronic checking or other types of accounts to low- and moderate-income individuals not being served by a financial institution.

For additional information contact these regional offices:

Region I Albany -      Phone: 518-862-7400   E-mail: region1@ncua.gov

Region II Capital -     Phone: 703-519-4600   E-mail: region2@ncua.gov

Region III Atlanta -    Phone: 678-443-3000   E-mail: region3@ncua.gov

Region IV Chicago -  Phone: 630-955-4100   E-mail: region4@ncua.gov

RegionV Austin -      Phone: 512-342-5600   E-mail: region5@ncua.gov

Region VI Pacific -    Phone: 925-363-6200   E-mail: region6@ncua.gov

Or Contact: Office of Credit Union Development   
                   Phone:703-518-6610  
                   E-mail: ocudmail@ncua.gov

www.ncua.gov
www.accessacrossamerica.gov

National Credit Union Administration
1775 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA 22314-3428
Phone (703) 518-6300

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