SALT LAKE CITY – Still another large state-chartered Utah credit union is moving to the federal charter. The $321 million University of Utah Credit Union, the fourth largest CU in the state, has filed with NCUA's Concord, Calif. region office to convert. It follows by a week the announcement by the $266 million Deseret First CU, also of Salt Lake, that it also has filed for a state-to-federal charter conversion. U of U CU did not return calls regarding its plans or reasoning for the switch, but management maintained last spring during the tax fight in the state legislature that the credit union found Utah's anti-CU environment inhospitable to operate as a state charter. U of U CU lists a membership of 58,000 and 11 branches. The U of UCU application, said NCUA, is for a field of membership expansion into six Utah counties. That mirrors the pattern of other large Utah CUs whose FOM approvals that were followed by charter conversion are being challenged by the contentious American Bankers Association/Utah Bankers Association suit against NCUA pending in federal district court here. The bankers complain the NCUA vastly overstepped its authority for a "well-defined community" in Utah by approving a six-county FOM expansion for Tooele Federal CU, a small suburban Salt Lake CU. Hearings are scheduled to begin on that suit late this month. Joining in that suit with the UBA are four small Utah banks. CUNA and NAFCU plan to submit intervenor petitions on the side of NCUA. [email protected]