Compliance Blog

Last Thursday, NCUA activated its National Examination Team.  You may remember this from the NCUA budget meeting.  NCUA indicated that they needed a larger budget to help pay for extra examiners.  This is part of that effort.  Read the NCUA press release about the activation here.   Here's a snippet.

This initiative is in further response to the difficulties caused by declining home values, high mortgage delinquency rates, high foreclosure rates, high unemployment rates, and concentrations of real estate loans that have affected credit unions to varying degrees. Where those factors are present, NCUA will deploy a specialized team of examiners who will concentrate on the most difficult cases.... 

....NET will supervise assigned credit unions until problems are resolved, either returning the credit union to regional supervision or activating merger, conservatorship or closure. 

Additionally, the NET will be responsible for examining and supervising approximately ten credit unions, mainly large and more complex institutions.  The NET also represents an opportunity to expose NCUA examiners to a broad range of credit unions and varying levels of risk, thereby augmenting NCUA’s succession planning objectives.   The NET is comprised of a director, five problem case officers (PCOs) and the equivalent of one loss risk analysis officer (LRAO). In addition, regional subject matter examiners (SMEs) will be detailed to NET on an as needed basis.

NCUA didn't list the credit unions who will be examined and supervised by the NET.  My guess is this: if yours is on that list, you probably knew it by now.

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Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) has introduced legislation to amend the TARP provision of Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.  Read Representative Frank's press release here.  From the release, you'll be able to view the actual legislation.  But here's an interesting portion:

Title VII - Permanent Increase in FDIC and NCUA Deposit Insurance Limits

Makes permanent the increase in deposit insurance coverage for banks and credit unions to $250,000, which was enacted temporarily as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act and is scheduled to sunset on December 31, 2009, and includes an inflation adjustment provision for future coverage.

Again, this is just legislation, but you can see that Rep. Frank has already taken steps to make permanent the increase in share insurance protection that took place last year. 

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Now, for the shameless plug.  (First, I hope you don't mind these.  I figure that you read this blog because compliance issues are important to you and your credit union.  NAFCU offers many compliance related products and services, so I want to alert you to something when I think it can help.)

With that in mind, I wanted to alert you to the NAFCU webcast annual subscription.  For one fee, you can watch all our webcasts.  What do we have lined up? Here are the webcasts that we currently have planned.  

• Surviving the Real Estate Crisis: Maximizing Recovery for Delinquent Loans;
• Real Estate Settlement Overhaul: Complying with RESPA Reform;
• Reg Z and UDAP: An Overview of Changes Coming for 2010;
• Complying with UDAP and Reg Z: How the Changes Will Impact Your Credit Card Programs;   
• Applications and Solicitations: Complying with New Disclosure Rules - Reg Z Final Rule Part 1;
• Account Opening Disclosures Changes from A to Z - Reg. Z Final Rule Part 2;
• Periodic Statements and Changing Terms: Complying with Additional Disclosures - Reg Z Final Rule Part 3; and 
• New Advertising Rules: How They Will Impact Your Marketing Programs  - Reg Z Final Rule Part 4.

Go here for additional details. (Pricing is $2,500 for NAFCU members, and $3,500 for nonmember credit unions.)