WASHINGTON–As President-elect Donald Trump continues to work his way through the transition to taking office and making appointments to various departments and agencies, there has been plenty of discussion around what might happen to the leadership at NCUA.
The three-member board currently has one vacancy and its chairman, Rick Metsger, is a Democratic appointee. But the Republican on the panel, who could be elevated to chairman by Trump, has also been mentioned for other posts. McWatters is currently nominated for a position on the board of the Export Import Bank, but that nomination has been stalled in Congress.
All that will change, however, once Trump takes office in January.
Former NCUA board member Geoff Bacino, who now leads Bacino & Associates noted that Paul Atkins has been named by Trump to head its transition team for independent financial agencies, which includes NCUA, and Atkins and Mark McWatters previously served together on a TARP oversight board.
“This makes it more likely that McWatters will be named chairman fairly soon after President-elect Trump takes office, unless McWatters is tapped to run another agency,” wrote Bacino in his monthly newsletter. “(The) SEC, CFPB and FDIC are three of the possibilities for the well-connected McWatters.”
Meanwhile, Bacino added, among the members of the “landing team” that will work with NCUA is someone with a familiar name for credit unions – former NCUA Chairman Mike Fryzel. That has led to some conjecture, said Bacino, that Fryzel could return for a second stint on the board in the same way that former NCUA Chairman Debbie Matz did.