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June 24, 2011 – The NCUA Board is holding a special open meeting at 8:30 a.m. June 29 on the proposed, voluntary corporate stabilization prepayment program, the agency announced Thursday.

As proposed in May, the program would allow credit unions to prepay anywhere from $10,000 to an amount equal to 0.36 percent of their insured shares. NAFCU President Fred Becker, in an official comment letter, recommended no upper cap, noting that credit unions are in the best position to determine how much they wish to prepay. NCUA would designate such payments as "low-risk."

If the program is approved June 29, NCUA's proposed timeline shows a Letter to Credit Unions, providing details, going out the day after. Credit unions would have 40 days from the board's action to submit their agreement forms, and NCUA would have two days after that to e-mail applicants regarding total commitments made.

If NCUA gets the amount of commitments it needs, it would process a direct debit of the credit union's account through Pay.gov five days after those e-mails are sent – or 47 days after the board's approval of the program.

NCUA is considering the program as a way to meet funding requirements coming due in October without borrowing new funds from Treasury. In its initial proposal, it contemplated going forward with the program only if it received commitments from credit unions of $300 million or more, in the aggregate.

Becker, in Monday's official comment, noted it's important for credit unions to make their own decisions about any prepayments they would wish to make on corporate stabilization assessments. He also reiterated a call for full transparency, urging, for example, that NCUA publicly disclose the amount of commitments it receives in connection with the proposed plan, the impact of prepayments on future assessments, planned use of the prepaid amounts and more.

NCUA, following a request from NAFCU, has postedcomments received online and made them available to the general public.