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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NAFCU: NCUA's Final Risk-Based Capital Proposal Misses Mark, Credit Unions Still Need Legislative Solution For True Risk-Based Capital System

Washington (Oct. 15, 2015) - National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) President and CEO Dan Berger issued the following statement today in response to the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board's approval of its final risk-based capital proposal during the agency's open board meeting.

"NAFCU works continuously to secure good policy for credit unions, and we and our members are unwavering in our view that a legislative solution is required to create a true risk-based capital system for credit unions," said Berger. "Given NCUA's insistence on moving forward with this rule, NAFCU has worked steadfastly to make a bad rule better. We acknowledge NCUA's heeding credit unions' voices and incorporating some much-needed improvements.Specifically, the final rule recalibrates many risk weights to better align with banks' requirements, removes interest-rate risk from the calculation of the risk-based capital ratio, and extends the implementation date.However, the rule still fails to create a true and fair risk-based capital regime for credit unions. To that end, we hope the agency will use the time before the rule's implementation date to work with us and with Congress to achieve a legislative solution to capital reform."

The NCUA Board today also delegated community charter expansion requests to the Office of Consumer Protection. "We welcome the agency's effort to streamline the charter expansion process," said Berger. "However, we continue to believe that credit unions would benefit from comprehensive field-of-membership reform. We hope as NCUA prepares its FOM proposal, it will incorporate the numerous recommendations we put forth in our May 2015 letter to the agency."

The National Association of Federal Credit Unions is the only national trade association focusing exclusively on federal issues affecting the nation's federally insured credit unions. NAFCU membership is direct and provides credit unions with the best in federal advocacy, education and compliance assistance. www.nafcu.org.

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Patty Briotta
Director of Public Relations
Office:703-842-2820
pbriotta@nafcu.org