ALEXANDRIA, Va.–Today will mark the last official NCUA board meeting for NCUA Chairman Debbie Matz, who is stepping down April 30.
That means effective May 1, NCUA will be operating with a two-person board: current Vice Chairman Rick Metsger, and board member Mark McWatters.
May 1 is also National Law Day, notes McWatters in his latest column in NCUA’s newsletter, which he suggested is appropriate, as he reiterated his support for scaling back NCUA oversight. Separately, he said NCUA may need to revisit its just-passed risk-based capital plan due to actions in Congress.
“This transition period for NCUA can mean more than the changing of the guard at the board level,” wrote McWatters. “It affords us an opportunity to focus on what the Federal Credit Union Act means for the agency as a regulator and safety and soundness supervisor and to engage in ‘smart regulation,’ which avoids heavy handedness and tailors rules to correct outliers.”
As an example, McWatters cited the move to an 18-month exam cycle from the current 12-month exam cycle, which is popular among credit unions. For his part, McWatters wrote, he does not find the arguments for delaying the implementation of the longer schedule to be “compelling.”
“As I have repeatedly stated, it’s time—in fact it is overdue—for NCUA to not only review but to rethink our exam appeals process,” McWatters wrote.
McWatters also said NCUA and credit unions will need to keep an eye on the House Financial Services Committee, which is reviewing certain capital standards for community banks.
NCUA, wrote McWatters, will need to “watch this process very carefully as it unfolds, and the board may need to reconsider our risk-based capital rule, because of final changes in capital requirements for smaller banks. I dissented to the adoption of this rule because I found many aspects of it were not justified under the Federal Credit Union Act. As credit unions for the most part are thriving without the rule, I continue to challenge this action, and nothing has dispelled my very serious concerns about its impact when it takes effect in January 2018.”