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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

NCUA Seeks Comments on Comprehensive Regulatory Reform Agenda

Agency Rule-Making & Guidance NCUA Federal Register Lending

Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

On August 16, the National Credit Union Association (NCUA) announced plans to publish in the Federal Register a notice requesting comments on its four-year regulatory reform agenda. As an independent agency, the NCUA is not required to comply with President Trump’s Executive Order 13777, which compels agencies to review and carry out regulatory reform, but it chose to voluntarily comply with the spirit of this Order by forming an internal regulatory reform task force to determine if any of the agency’s existing regulations should be eliminated, revised, improved, or clarified. The Task Force Report outlines its initial findings and recommendations for the amendment or repeal of regulatory requirements that it has determined are outdated, ineffective, or excessively burdensome. The report provides a three-tiered prioritization approach to regulatory reform based on “degree of impact and degree of effort” covering a four-year period, where “impact” focuses on the “magnitude of the benefit that would result from the change, and how broadly the stakeholder community would be impacted”, and “effort” considers the time and energy required to make the change.

Tier 1 recommendations, assigned the highest level of priority with a two year target time frame, address the following key recommendations: (i) revisions to the “loans to members and lines of credit to members” rules, which govern federal credit union loan maturity limits, single borrower limits, third-party servicing of indirect vehicle loans and executive compensation plans; (ii) modernization of the federal credit union bylaws; (iii) revisions to the agency’s chartering and field of membership manual; (iv) potential changes to capital planning and stress test threshold requirements; and (v) implementation of certain fidelity bond and insurance coverage requirements.

Tier 2 recommendations, which provide a three-year target time frame, address the following key recommendations: (i) revisions to aggregate loan participation limits; (ii) conducting a review to determine whether prior NCUA approval is required to purchase and assume liabilities from market participants other than federal credit unions; and (iii) easing restrictions on investment activities not required by the Federal Credit Union Act.

Tier 3 recommendations, which provide a four-year target time frame, address the following key recommendations: (i) enhanced third-party due diligence rules; (ii) changes concerning loans and credit lines to members to “[e]nhance Federal preemption where possible and appropriate” in an effort to reduce overlap with state laws and regulatory burden; and (ii) conducting a review of the regulation pertaining to security programs, suspected crimes and transactions reporting, catastrophic acts, and Bank Secrecy Act compliance.

Comments on the proposed plan are due 90 days after publication in the Federal Register.