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NAFCU has learned that NCUA Board Chairman Debbie Matz has written 348 House and Senate members to let them know of plans – long sought by NAFCU – to issue a second proposal for comment on risk-based capital.

NAFCU has been instrumental in Congress' response to the agency's RBC proposal. The association worked closely with Reps. Peter King, R-N.Y., and Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., as they worked to garner signatures for a joint letter to Matz expressing lawmakers' concerns about the proposal's impact on credit unions and their members. It also encouraged other members of Congress to weigh in.

The King-Meeks letter, with 324 signatures in all from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, urged NCUA to consider the costs to credit unions of its proposal, ensure credit unions have sufficient time to review it and to comply, and to provide "justification and more clarity" about why the proposed risk weights are different than the standards in place for other community financial institutions.

Several senators, including Senate Banking Chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, also wrote Matz urging caution. In their letter, Johnson and Crapo noted concern that the RBC proposal would require credit unions to maintain additional capital in order to maintain their capital cushion, or that portion of capital above the requirement for a classification of "well-capitalized."

NAFCU obtained a copy of a letter sent to Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., by Matz about the planned second proposal. Agency staff confirmed Matz has written to all members of Congress who wrote in on the proposed rule.

Reiterating information from her public statement Monday, Matz said the NCUA Board could issue a new proposal before the end of 2014. "Stakeholders will also be invited to comment on an alternative approach for addressing interest rate risk using the supervisory process," she wrote.