WASHINGTON–Three federal financial regulators, including NCUA, “don’t know” if their efforts to improve “banking access” are working, and performance measures should be put in place, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Those efforts, the success of which is being questioned, are specifically meant to increase access by low-income, less-educated, and minority households, GAO stated.
GAO noted the three federal regulators said federal regulators have developed the programs as a means of expanding services to unbanked and underbanked groups, but there is no way of knowing whether they are working. The government watchdog agency said it found some of the regulators “lack outcome-oriented measures of their efforts to increase banking access or their measures do not cover all their key initiatives.”
Three Examples
As examples, GAO said it found:
- NCUA measures how long it takes to process credit union charters, which the GAO said helps the credit union regulator assess timeliness, “but does not provide information to assess agency performance in facilitating access to credit union services.”
- An FDIC public awareness campaign was launched to build awareness of the benefits of bank accounts. “Yet, its measures indicate only whether a task was completed and do not incorporate information on the outcomes (which could be used to assess the activities).”
- The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) launched an initiative to increase access to credit, including small-dollar loans, yet it “did not incorporate performance measures for a key initiative to enhance banking access.”
‘Outcome-Oriented’ Measures Needed
“By using outcome-oriented performance measures for their efforts to increase access to banking services, FDIC, NCUA, and OCC could better identify opportunities for improvement across all key initiatives and set priorities accordingly,” GAO said in the report.
GAO is recommending NCUA, FDIC and GAO establish “outcome-based performance measures” reflecting the full scope of their efforts to achieve strategic objectives related to access to banking services.
According to GAO, all three agencies generally agreed with these recommendations, the GAO said.
The full report can be found here.
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