NCUA’s latest Letter to Credit Unions (20-CU-21) announced that the agency is in the process of reinstating rural districts for credit unions that had these removed due to the American Bankers Association (ABA) lawsuit. The Supreme Court recently denied the ABA’s petition to review the NCUA’s field of membership rules.

“The lack of financial access is especially prevalent in rural communities, which have experienced the withdrawal of financial institutions over the last decade,” the letter reads. “The Supreme Court’s decision will assist the agency’s efforts to bring these important and often overlooked communities back into the financial mainstream.”

The NCUA will also resume processing applications for federal credit unions with a rural district field of membership. The NCUA considers a rural district as:

• Well-defined, contiguous geographic boundaries;
• The total population of the proposed district does not exceed one million.