Carrie Hunt, NAFCU
ARLINGTON, Va.—As NCUA considers amending its Chartering and FOM Manual, NAFCU is encouraging the agency to fully utilize its statutory authority to provide “requisite relief” to credit unions and help them continue to grow.
In a letter to NCUA’s board, NAFCU Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and General Counsel Carrie Hunt said, “While we acknowledge that legislation is necessary to relax aspects of the Federal Credit Union Act’s limitations on chartering, we firmly believe that NCUA can enact constructive regulatory relief today by streamlining its chartering and FOM procedures, as well as removing all non-statutory constraints on FOM chartering and expansion.”
Hunt noted that to develop recommendations for the agency’s consideration, NAFCU convened a taskforce of more than 50 of the trade association’s members of various asset sizes, charter types and geographical locations to examine issues related to NCUA’s existing FOM procedures and regulations.
The letter included specific recommendations of the taskforce that Hunt said NAFCU believes “will effect progressive procedural and regulatory FOM relief.”
Those details can be found here.
The letter points out that the dual chartering system works best when both state and federal charters keep pace with each other, and that several states have been progressive in modernizing their FOM rules—leading to a growing number of federal-to-state charter conversions. NCUA General Counsel Michael McKenna and Deputy Director of the Office of Consumer Protection Matthew Biliouris were copied on the letter.