Newsroom

The rates in NCUA's operating fee scale for federal credit unions, which NCUA estimates will provide $80.4 million toward the agency's 2016 operating budget, will drop 0.47 percent as a result of agency board action Thursday.

The agency also adjusted the fee scale asset-level dividing points by 4.75 percent, based on estimated asset growth for 2015 for federal credit unions. Fees will be collected by April 15, 2016. (NAFCU has updated its operating fee calculator; members can access it here.)

NCUA's total 2016 budget of $290.9 million – up 4.1 percent from 2015 – gets its funding from the operating fees, the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund overhead transfer rate plus a small amount of interest and miscellaneous income.

For 2016, the OTR is rising from 71.8 percent to 73.1 percent. NCUA said this increase was driven mostly by an increase in the percentage of insured shares held by federally insured, state-chartered credit unions.

The board's vote Thursday wasn't to approve the 2016 OTR but to delegate to the Director of Examination and Insurance the authority to set and adjust the OTR rate based on board-approved OTR methodology.

NCUA Chairman Matz has said she plans to ask the board to vote during the January open meeting to approve publication of the current OTR methodology in the Federal Register for public comment. That would be repeated periodically, and the board would seek comments on any future changes in methodology.

The board approved Thursday's delegation action on a vote of 2-1, with Board Member J. Mark McWatters dissenting.