GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.–The National Association of Credit Union Services Organizations (NACUSO) has issued a statement in support of a move by the NCUA board to add a vote on finalizing CUSO rule amendments to its October meeting.
The rule was originally proposed at NCUA’s January 2021 board meeting.
“As we have stated many times, NACUSO sees this rule as both an advancement of opportunities for credit unions to use CUSOs to generate ROA and a long overdue modernization of the CUSO rule itself,” NACUSO said in a statement. “We commend Board Member (Rodney) Hood and Vice Chairman (Kyle) Hauptman for their visionary leadership and understanding of the value of CUSOs to the credit union industry.”
NCUA Chairman Todd Harper has not been as supportive, which NACUSO acknowledged.
During testimony before a House committee Harper said there have been losses of more than $300 million from CUSOs over a seven-year period, which he said is the reason the agency needs vendor oversight authority, as CUToday.info reported here.
GAO Report Cited
When asked by CUToday.info for specifics related to those losses, an NCUA spokesperson said, “Due to the supervisory nature of the action, the NCUA is not able to comment on which CUSOs caused losses to which credit unions.”
Instead, the spokesperson cited a 2020 report from the agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), “Audit of the NCUA's Examination and Oversight Authority over Credit Union Service Organizations and Vendors” as the basis for the statement.
“And we continue to extend our resources to Chairman Harper to work with him to help alleviate any justifiable concerns about the CUSO amendments and the collaborative value of CUSOs over the past thirty years to the cooperative credit union movement,” NACUSO said. “We anxiously await the results of the October NCUA board meeting and the implementation of the final CUSO rule which has been under consideration at NCUA since it was included on their agency strategic priority list in 2018.”