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NAFCU weighed in yesterday with specific recommendations for achieving NCUA budget transparency and regulatory relief for credit unions in a letter sent ahead of this afternoon's House subcommittee NCUA oversight hearing, which will feature testimony from agency Chairman Debbie Matz.

The hearing, set for 2 p.m. by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, will be viewable online here.

Hunt, in last night's letter, thanked the panel for scheduling today's hearing and emphasized the credit union industry's need for more details about a budget they pay for and which continues to grow. "Because NCUA's budget is funded exclusively by the credit unions it regulates and insures," Hunt wrote, "it is of the utmost and ever-increasing importance to the credit union industry."

In her letter, Hunt noted the agency's budget has grown by more than half – by $100 million – since 2008 to a budget now set at $288 million. She noted the larger, more recent increases have come at a time that FDIC is scaling back its own budget.

Hunt pressed action on several current bills that would increase budget transparency, for example, by requiring annual budget hearings, publication of the draft budget for public comment and a top-to-bottom review of the agency's budgeting process by the Government Accountability Office.

Hunt, commending the agency for its work to eliminate the fixed-assets investment limit for federal credit unions, argued for more regulatory relief for credit unions. For example, she urged that NCUA use its existing authority to also ease field-of-membership rules for federal credit unions. In addition, she urged the subcommittee's support for legislation to facilitate more member business lending by credit unions and allow all credit unions access to supplemental capital.

Finally, Hunt reiterated NAFCU's strong objection to NCUA's request for third-party vendor examination authority. "We view this as regulatory overreach that would prove costly and create new burdens for the industry," Hunt says.

NAFCU anticipates some discussion of the agency's budget transparency during today's open NCUA Board meeting, which will include discussion of the midyear reprogramming of the budget.