ARLINGTON, Va.–NASCUS has filed a comment letter with NCUA regarding its annual review of its regulations.
“It is incumbent on regulators to identify, and amend or rescind, rules that are unnecessarily burdensome or duplicative, or ineffective,” NASCUS said. “This is as true for NCUA as it is for our state regulators. It is also true that some unpopular rules are necessary to mitigate material risk to the institutions themselves or to the credit union system.”
Among the points made in NASCUS’ letter:
Ease Regulatory Burden for Federally Insured State Chartered Credit Unions by Reorganizing NCUA’s Rule and Regulations.
“NCUA should reorganize its rules to consolidate all NCUSIF based rules in one section and all rules related to the federal charter in another, thereby providing significant regulatory relief to credit unions,” NASCUS wrote. “Furthermore, this is meaningful regulatory relief that requires no increase in risk tolerance.”
NASCUS said NCUA’s current practice of cross referencing rules in Part 741 unnecessarily burdens FISCUs.
Consistency and Continuity on Cyber Security Related Initiatives
With respect to Part 748 security requirements, NASCUS said it has no specific rule recommendations. “However we do urge NCUA to remain cognizant of the need for a practical and consistent approach to cybersecurity initiatives and expectations.”
Bank Secrecy Act and Reporting to the Board
NASCUS said it appreciates that a majority of NCUA's BSA/AML related rules under §748 are verbatim implementations of statute, limiting NCUA's discretion to enact changes.
“However, one area where NCUA has latitude to provide operational flexibility to some credit unions relates to §7481.1(c)(4)(i) Notification to board of directors,” NASCUS said. “The provision requires a federally insured credit union to ‘promptly’ notify its board of directors, or a designated committee of the board, of any Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) filed. In guidance issued in December 2006, NCUA defined ‘promptly’ as at least monthly, and notes that reporting at the monthly board meeting satisfies this requirement. We note that not all states require monthly board meetings.”
NCUA should revise guidance to provide that notification at the next board meeting satisfies the requirement. Providing credit unions some flexibility in reporting SARs to the board does not increase risk to the share insurance fund.
For the full NASCUS letter, visit CUToday.info’s The Gov.