NCUA to Appeal Field of Membership Ruling

The NCUA will appeal a federal judge’s ruling that voided parts of the agency’s new field of membership rule.

In documents filed in the U.S. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday, the agency said it will appeal U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich’s ruling that two sections of the rule violated federal law.

On March 29, the judge threw out a provision of the agency’s new field of membership rule that increases to one million people the population limit for rural districts. She also threw out a provision of the rule that automatically qualified a “Combined Statistical Area” or a contiguous portion of it with fewer than 2.5 million people to be a local community.

Friedrich left other parts of the rule intact.

The rule had challenged by the American Bankers Association, who argued that the rule violated federal law governing credit union membership.

Following the ruling, the NCUA said it would not order credit unions that expanded their fields of membership based on the new rules to “de-list” people who joined credit unions under the expanded rules.

The ABA did not object to that decision.