WASHINGTON—In a letter to the House Financial Services Committee, NCUA Chairman Rick Metsger Tuesday emphasized the agency’s commitment to continuing to provide regulatory relief for credit unions and reiterated the possibility of extending the exam cycle for well-run, healthy credit unions.
In the letter sent to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Metsger also detailed NCUA’s future priorities.
“As NCUA board chairman, I am also committed to ensuring that NCUA uses its limited resources strategically and efficiently. As the financial services industry and the credit union risk landscape evolves, it is important that NCUA smartly adapt,” wrote Metsger. “We must commensurately and continually improve our current processes. Accordingly, I am employing a continual quality improvement process to address issues like extending the examination cycle for well-managed and financially sound credit unions and improving the supervision process. In my experience, asking how we can we make something better and seeking input from all stakeholders—like agency examiners and specialists, credit unions, borrowers, depositors, and the general public—is more likely to yield the best answer. I intend to employ this public-engagement approach to my work as chairman.”
Metsger noted that he hopes to have the NCUA board vote on the exam-cycle change within the next two months.
Metsger added that to promote public confidence in the work of the agency, “NCUA must enhance transparency whenever possible. Under my leadership, we will work to pursue greater awareness about the agency’s operations by holding public briefings, such as the briefing on updating the Call Report and Credit Union Profile systems that we held during the Board meeting in May.”
NAFCU Executive Vice President of Government Affairs and General Counsel Carrie Hunt thanked Metsger for being open to these changes. “NAFCU and our member credit unions thank Chairman Metsger for his focus on providing regulatory relief to the industry,” she said. “We look forward to working with him to expeditiously achieve these goals.”