U.S. Central Credit Union

U.S. Central Federal Credit Union is the largest corporate credit union in the United States. Unlike consumer driven credit unions (referred to as "natural person" credit unions in the industry), U.S. Central provides its services only to other corporate credit unions, in effect acting as the "corporate credit union's credit union". The organization was founded in 1974.

U.S. Central does not serve consumers directly, a role fulfilled by consumer credit unions, it was instead established to serve the credit union industry by providing opportunities for investments through government approved instruments and providing liquidity (credit) needs to regional and state corporate credit unions which need them. U.S. Central also provides other industry standard services such as payment systems, electronic funds transfer services and item processing. The organization also provides economic services and forecasts specific to the credit union industry. Many of its operations and services parallel that of a central bank, except it serves corporate credit unions rather than commercial banks.

U.S. Central Federal Credit Union is located in Lenexa, Kansas.

In January 2009, the National Credit Union Administration injected $1 billion into U.S. Central. On March 20, 2009, NCUA placed U.S. Central Credit Union into conservatorship.

The NCUA was unable to obtain a buyer for the services and is winding down its operations. Originally, September 30, 2012 was the targeted as U.S. Central's final day of operations, however, the NCUA has, according to U.S. Central's web site, has continued limited operations until December 31, 2012:

"With this extension, new investments with maturities of two years or less in participating corporate credit unions made before December 31, 2010, will be fully covered by the guarantee program."