News

ALEXANDRIA, VA - The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) today launched a three-year collaborative effort to promote EXIM export financing products among federally insured credit unions and their clients. The initiative will facilitate the engagement of credit unions in export financing, thereby leading to expanded opportunities for U.S. businesses and more American jobs supported, particularly in the small business sector.

EXIM Chairman Kimberly A. Reed and NCUA Chairman Rodney E. Hood signed a memorandum of understanding at NCUA's headquarters in Alexandria, VA with the intent to collaborate on educational initiatives and other outreach efforts throughout the credit union industry. Chairman Reed was joined at NCUA by EXIM Chief Banking Officer Steve Renna, who further outlined how EXIM's programs can support credit unions and their members. The event was live-streamed to 57 viewers.

"This MOU represents EXIM's first-ever targeted outreach to credit unions and their millions of customers, and will provide important support to America's small businesses - especially those that may be exporting for the first time," said Chairman Reed. "NCUA Chairman Hood is a visionary leader and I look forward to the collaboration between our agencies to raise awareness with credit unions on the services available through EXIM to help their members export, grow their businesses and U.S. jobs, and bring prosperity to local communities."

"Under this agreement, we'll be working with EXIM to develop educational and training initiatives on export financing opportunities to share with credit unions, so they can educate their small-business members about the available opportunities, such as an EXIM guaranteed loan being exempt from the member business cap of 12.25 percent," said Chairman Hood. "Helping small businesses to gain access to capital is essential, and we can anticipate that this collaboration will be a great help to many hard-pressed entrepreneurs, particularly the steep challenges they face in today's environment."

Federally insured credit unions are an important part of the United States' financial structure, with more than 5,000 institutions having total membership reaching 120.4 million during the fourth quarter of 2019. Total assets in federally insured credit unions reached $1.57 trillion at the same time, with total outstanding loans of $64 billion.

As part of EXIM's recent reauthorization, Congress directed EXIM to build on the agency's robust support of small businesses even further, and this MOU is an important step toward that goal.

EXIM Chairman Kimberly A. Reed and NCUA Chairman Rodney E. Hood

ABOUT EXIM:

EXIM is an independent federal agency that promotes and supports American jobs by providing competitive and necessary export credit to support sales of U.S. goods and services to international buyers. A robust EXIM can level the global playing field for U.S. exporters when they compete against foreign companies that receive support from their governments. EXIM also contributes to U.S. economic growth by helping to create and sustain hundreds of thousands of jobs in exporting businesses and their supply chains across the United States. In recent years, approximately 90 percent of the total number of the agency's authorizations has directly supported small businesses. Since 1992, EXIM has generated more than $9 billion for the U.S. Treasury for repayment of U.S. debt.

For more information about EXIM, please visit www.exim.gov.