ALEXANDRIA, Va.–NCUA Board Member Mark McWatters is calling for additional steps to address what he said are “deficiencies” in NCUA’s examinations appeals process.
McWatters called on the agency to designate a senior executive as an “outreach officer” who will contact credit unions that have just completed an examination to obtain “retaliation-free” feedback from them about their experience. McWatters, whose recommendations were made in a column he authored in January’s NCUA Report, said that the outreach officer should report directly to and provide the NCUA board with quarterly reports on his or her own findings and analysis.
In turn, NCUA should “utilize the information from that outreach and undertake periodic short surveys to credit unions on examinations to develop recommendations that are incorporated into future exam appeals proposals to continually improve our process,” wrote McWatters.
He said he believes NCUA’s current appeal process to be contrary to the rule of law and Constitutional due process.
McWatters also called on NCUA to do more in its examiner training programs to “promote a culture of tolerance and respect for credit unions throughout their exams and any appeal,” and further urged that all information about appeals, to the extent legally permissible, should be accessible and fully transparent on the NCUA website.
“The credit union community, rightly so in my view, has grown exceedingly weary with the agency’s failure to address the glaring inadequacies in its appeals process,” McWatters wrote.
McWatters also repeated his call for NCUA to form an Advisory Council, saying it is the only federal financial regulator that does not have that kind of input from the institutions it regulates.
Since authoring that column McWatters has since been nominated by President Obama for a seat on the board of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, as CUToday.info reported here.