New Year's Eve Credit Union Liquidation

The last institution to fail in 2009 turned out to be a credit union. The NCUA just reported that it liquidated HeritageWest Federal Credit Union of Tooele, Utah. Chartway Federal Credit Union purchased and assumed HeritageWest Federal Credit Union’s assets, loans and shares. Unlike many credit union liquidations this year, this one wasn't tiny. It had $311 million in assets and served 40,000 members.

It appears that no member will lose any of their deposits that are over the NCUA limit. However, the NCUA press release doesn't provide many details. The FDIC does a better job on reporting on these details.

According to the NCUA press release, this is the 15th liquidation of a federally insured credit union in 2009. The number of bank failures in 2009 is 140. The last bank failures occurred on December 18th.

HeritageWest's ratings for safety and soundness were at the lowest level at both BauerFinancial (0 star) and Bankrate (1 star).

References:

• FDIC list of failed banks
• Latest FDIC info on deposit insurance
• Last 20 of my bank failure posts
• 10 Lessons from the 2008 bank failures
• Review of the 2008 credit union liquidations