Truliant Federal Credit Union in Winston-Salem, North Carolina has been certified as a community development financial institution.
The $3.6 billion-asset credit union received its designation as a CDFI on Jan. 7, after starting the application process on April 21 of last year. To be eligible for certification as a CDFI, financial institutions must adhere to certain requirements such as offering services for development, remaining accountable to its main target market and striving to promote development within its communities.
“The CDFI designation increases our ability to provide financial services to the communities that need it the most … we are excited about the range of loan possibilities and opportunities that we will be able to bring to these communities in the future,” Anderson Langford, chief operations officer at Truliant, said in a press release on Tuesday.
Truliant worked with CU Strategic Planning, a Tacoma, Washington-based firm that assists institutions with the CDFI application process while also providing advisory and grant drafting services. Recently, the company assisted
Using its new status, Truliant plans to apply for grant funding through the U.S. Department of Treasury’s CDFI Fund to establish a lending program in 2023 that will meet the needs of the underserved members within its community.
“Through CDFI funding, we can target the pressing financial needs of economically distressed communities … by offering solutions to address predatory lending, rebuilding credit and crippling debt and by teaching healthy financial habits, we can play a greater role in building prosperous communities,” Langford said in the release.
