ALEXANDRIA, Va.–NCUA has put out for comment a proposal that calls for revising the requirement for submission of written agreements between credit unions and CUSOs to only apply to new investments in CUSOs.
The agency said it is revising information collection for credit unions that have an interest a CUSO. Under current rules, a federally insured credit union (FICU) must have a written agreement with a CUSO prior to investing to making any investment or lending any money. That agreement calls for the CUSO to follow general accepted accounting principles (GAAP); to prepare quarterly financial statements; to grant NCUA access to the CUSO’s books and records, and annually report directly to NCUA via an online CUSO registry.
NCUA said in a filing in the Federal Register that the written agreements will now be limited to the new CUSO investments. It said the result will be a reduced regulatory burden on credit unions.
Burden Reduction
This information collection requirements only needed to be completed one time by all FICUs with an interest in a CUSO. The agency says that going forward, written agreements will only apply to new CUSO investments, according to NCUA’s filing in the Federal Register.
“Since the previous submission, the NCUA has launched the web-based CUSO Registry system which has provided a better estimate of the number of CUSOs in existence,” NCUA stated in its public notice. “The total number of CUSOs is less than previously estimated, which has reduced the overall burden.”
More precisely, NCUA said the overall burden to credit unions has been reduced to 2,666 hours, down 77% (or 8,893 hours) from the 11,559 hours the agency originally estimated.
The comment period is open through Dec. 10.