The Federal Housing Finance Agency adopted a final rule this week that lets non-federally insured credit unions become Federal Home Loan Bank members as of July 5, 2017. Until recently, state-chartered credit unions that weren’t federally insured by the National Credit Union Administration were ineligible for membership in the FHLBank system, unless they qualified as community development financial institutions. But in December 2015, Congress enacted the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, which included amending the FHLBank Act to permit non-federally insured credit unions (NFICUs) to become FHLBank members as long as certain requirements are met. NCUA provides the same insurance coverage on deposits as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that insures bank deposits.