National Credit Union Administration NCUA

Credit unions are member-owned, not-for-profit financial cooperatives. The Federal Credit Union Act, signed on June 26, 1934, allowed them to obtain federal charters, and oversight passed through several agencies until Congress created the independent National Credit Union Administration on March 10, 1970. Later that year Congress established the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, the credit union counterpart to FDIC deposit insurance. The NCUA is led by a three-member board appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to six-year terms, no more than two from one party.

The NCUA charters and examines federal credit unions, insures deposits at nearly all of the roughly 4,500 federally insured credit unions up to 250,000 dollars per member, per institution, for each ownership category, and liquidates or merges credit unions that fail. Federally insured credit unions serve well over 100 million members. The agency is funded by fees paid by the credit unions it supervises rather than by congressional appropriations, and the Share Insurance Fund is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

In April 2025 the President removed the board's two Democratic members before their terms expired, leaving a single member to run the agency. A federal court ruled the removals unlawful and reinstated them, but higher courts allowed the removals to take effect while appeals continued. Supporters of the removals said the President must control executive agencies, while credit union groups and critics argued that a bipartisan board protects the insurance fund and member deposits from political swings.