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Interest Rate Risk and the Examiners

Credit unions and examiners often disagree on how to manage interest rate risk.

By Michael Muckian | Updated on February 05, 2014
Like everyone else, Eagle Community Credit Union has weathered what CFO Scott Rains described as several years of blustery economic conditions. What’s more, the $206 million institution, located in the Orange County, Calif., community of Lake Forest, has prospered almost in spite of guidance given by its examiners.

Eagle Community, which serves 18,000 members including many federal employees, has few mortgages on its books and is primarily focused on short-term member loans. To help the credit union stay financially viable as the loan market softened in recent years, Rains rolled 50% of the credit union’s assets into investments. But volatile interest rates and a changing economic climate have started to threaten earnings even from that portfolio.

“We’ve had some pretty substantial unrealized losses [on investments] in the past nine months,” said Rains. “It’s about $2 million on an $80 million portfolio, but we’re very comfortable with that and I don’t have anything better to put my money into right now.”

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