Compliance Blog

Written by Alicia Nealon, Regulatory Compliance Counsel

Last week, NCUA’s Office of General Counsel released  its 2013 Regulatory Review report, concluding its annual review of one-third of  NCUA’s rules and regulations, which this year included CUSOs, appraisals, member business lending and the Central Liquidity Facility. The report confirms that NCUA will be addressing a number of issues that NAFCU continues to fight for to ease regulatory burden on credit unions. Particularly, the Office of General Counsel recommended that the NCUA Board consider eliminating or amending several of the regulations raised in NAFCU’s “Dirty Dozen.” 

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to see it, NAFCU prepared a list of twelve regulations- the “dirty dozen”-  that regulators need to eliminate or amend because they are unnecessary, outdated, or overly burdensome on credit unions. This Regulatory Review report affirms that NCUA is considering a number of recommendations included on the "dirty dozen" list as it reviews possible changes in rules on incidental powers, member business lending and appraisals.

The first of NAFCU’s “Dirty Dozen” is a call to expand credit union investment authority to include permissible investments in derivatives, securitization and mortgage servicing rights. The review notes that the NCUA Board may look into expanding credit unions’ incidental powers in allowing them to securitize their own loans. The agency is also expected to issue a rule on derivatives at the board meeting on Jan. 23.

The report mentions possible updates to the agency’s MBL rule, a change NAFCU pushed for as the fifth of its “Dirty Dozen.” These proposed updates would “reflect the current business climate” and address issues such as calculating market value in construction-related business loans and valuation-related issues. The report also raised the prospect of changes to the MBL rule’s personal guarantee requirement and its two-year direct experience requirement.

Addressing the final recommendation of the “Dirty Dozen,” the report recommends that the Board amend Section 722 to eliminate redundant NCUA requirements on credit unions to provide copies of appraisals upon request. 

Finally, the report acknowledges that the Dodd-Frank Act transferred the Fair Credit Reporting regulation to the CFPB and advises that Section 717 should be transferred to the CFPB. It also gives hope that NCUA may tackle other issues including modernizing advertising rules, and rules on notification of credit unions’ insurance status. 

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NAFCU's 2014 Technology and Security Conference.  NAFCU’s 2014 Technology and Security Conference, which will be held February 11-13 in Las Vegas, is a great place to discover the latest credit union security and technology trends. Conference topics include fraud trends, core processing issues, big data and credit union crisis management.  Check out more information about the conference and register here.

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BSA Blast – The January 2014 edition of NAFCU’s BSA Blast is now available (a NAFCU member login is needed).  This issue is all about enforcement – from FinCEN’s enhanced focus on holding financial institutions responsible for Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations and its enforcement action against JP Morgan Chase in connection with the Madoff scandal to recent OFAC enforcement actions against three banks. In addition the issue contains a new BSA quiz for use in staff training.