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NCUA Board Chairman Hood Talks about Financial Literacy, Community Service at Destinations Credit Union Event

PARKVILLE, Md. (July 18, 2019) – Destinations Credit Union, a federally insured, state-chartered credit union headquartered in Baltimore, has been designated a low-income credit union by the National Credit Union Administration and the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation.

“This means Destinations will have access to more tools to serve its members and its community,” NCUA Board Chairman Rodney E. Hood said. “Effective regulation entails looking at what an industry is doing right, and what we’re seeing here today is a sterling example of people who are getting it right.

“It’s a story about expanding opportunity and shared prosperity,” Hood said. “It’s a story about people investing in their own communities. Most of all, it’s a story about people helping people to achieve something greater by working together in partnership.”

Chairman Hood spoke at an event today hosted by Destinations to announce a partnership with Operation HOPE to open a financial literacy office in a Destinations branch in Parkville, Maryland.

Destinations will now have a financial well-being coach on staff to lead workshops and provide individual members with counselling, including advice on building savings, improving credit scores, and managing debt. Destinations is the first credit union in the country to offer the “HOPE Inside” program.

“The NCUA regards promoting financial literacy as fundamental to the credit union mission,” Hood said. “An educated credit union member is better-equipped to make the choices that lead to greater financial security. So I fully support efforts like the one Destinations and Operation HOPE are launching.”

Destinations Credit Union joins more than 2,500 federally insured credit unions across the country that have the low-income credit union designation. The designation is available to credit unions that serve communities with majority low-income populations and it provides them with an exception to the statutory business lending cap and access to Community Development Revolving Loan Fund grants and loans, secondary capital, and non-member deposits.