CUNA Regulatory Comment Call
July 17, 2003
Agency Review to Reduce Regulatory Burden
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- The NCUA Board has issued a request for comments to identify outdated, unnecessary or burdensome regulatory requirements imposed on federally insured credit unions. NCUA and the other federal financial requlators are required by a 1996 paperwork reduction law (Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act or EGRPRA) to review their regulations at least once every 10 years.
- The Act requires the regulators to categorize the regulations, publish the categories for comment, report to Congress on any significant issues raised by the comments and eliminate unnecessary regulations.
- Because the credit union system is quite different that the banking system, NCUA will publish its notices separately but maintain comparability with the other regulators to the extent the issues are the same.
- The EGRPRA review supplements and complements the rolling regulatory review that NCUA conducts under other laws and its internal policies.
- NCUA will seek comments on 10 categories of its regulations which impose burden on federally-insured credit unions between now and the end of the cycle (2006), starting with the following 2 categories: (1) applications and reporting and (2) powers and activities. The additional 8 categories will be: agency programs; capital; consumer protection; corporate credit unions; directors, officers and employees; money laundering; rules of procedure and safety and soundness.
- The current request for comments includes a chart with the categories of regulations on which the agency is requesting comment
this round and the subject matters that fall within those 2 categories:
(1) Applications and reporting- Change in official or senior executive officer in credit unions that are newly chartered or in troubled condition
- Field of membership/chartering
- Fees paid by federal credit unions
- Conversion of insured credit unions to mutual savings banks
- Mergers of federally insured credit unions; voluntary termination or conversion of insured status
- Applications for insurance
- Conversion to a state-chartered credit union
- Purchase of assets and assumption of liabilities
(2) Powers and activities
Lending, leasing and borrowing- Loans to members and lines of credit to members
- Participation loans
- Borrowed funds from natural persons
- Statutory lien
- Leasing
- Member business loans
- Maximum borrowing
Investment and deposits- Investment and deposit activities
- Fixed assets
- Credit union service organizations (CUSOs)
- Payment on shares by public units and nonmembers
- Designation of low-income status; receipt of secondary capital accounts by low-income designated credit unions
- Share, share draft and share certificate accounts
- Treasury tax and loan depositories; depositories and financial agents of the government
- Refund of interest
Miscellaneous activities- Incidental powers
- Charitable contributions and donations
- Credit union service contracts
- Purchase, sale and pledge of eligible obligations
- In the chart, NCUA also includes citations to the relevant regulations.
- NCUA plans to publish the remaining 8 categories in roughly semiannual intervals, with 90-day comment periods for categories under review, through September 2006. In this first ERGRPA notice, NCUA provides a similar chart for the upcoming notices.
- At the conclusion of the comment period for each EGRPRA review notice, NCUA will review the comments received and decide whether further action is appropriate with respect to the categories of regulations included in the notice. In the case of rules that NCUA has issued jointly with the other regulators, NCUA will make that decision jointly. If appropriate, NCUA independently, or jointly with the other regulators as necessary, will initiate a rulemaking to modify its rules.
- CUNA’s Examination and Supervision Subcommittee and Federal Credit Union Subcommittee will be developing CUNA’s comments.
- Comments are due to NCUA by October 1, 2003. Comments should be sent to Becky Baker, Secretary of the Board, National Credit Union Administration, 1775 Duke Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3428. You may fax your comments to NCUA to (703) 518-6319 or e-mail them to regcomments@NCUA.gov. Please submit your comments to CUNA by September 19, 2003. Please feel free to fax your responses to CUNA at 202-638-7052; e-mail them to Associate General Counsel Mary Dunn at mdunn@cuna.com or to Senior Regulatory Counsel Catherine Orr at corr@cuna.com; or mail them to Mary and Catherine in c/o CUNA’s Regulatory Advocacy Department, 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, South Building, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20004-2601. To obtain a copy of the proposed rule, please contact us or click here.
QUESTIONS REGARDING THE REQUEST FOR COMMENTS
-
Need and Purpose of the Regulations
- Do the regulations in the 2 categories fulfill current needs of credit unions?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
- Have industry or other circumstances changed since a regulation was written such that the regulation is no
longer necessary?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
- Have there been shifts within the industry or consumer actions that suggest a re-focus of the underlying regulations?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
- Do any of the regulations in these 2 categories impose burdens not required by their authorizing statutes?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
Need for Statutory Change - Do the statutes underlying the regulations in the 2 categories under review impose unnecessary requirements?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
- Are any of the statutory requirements underlying these categories redundant,
conflicting or otherwise unduly burdensome?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
Overreaching Approaches/Flexibility of the Regulatory Standards - Generally, is there a different approach to regulating that NCUA could use that
would achieve statutory goals while imposing less burden?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
- Do any of the regulations in these categories or the statutes underlying them impose
unnecessarily inflexible requirements?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
Effect of the Regulations on Competition - Do any of the regulations in these categories or the statutes underlying them create competitive disadvantages
for credit unions compared to another part of the financial services industry?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
Reporting, Recordkeeping and Disclosure Requirements - Do any of the regulations in these categories or the statutes underlying them impose particularly burdensome
reporting, recordkeeping or disclosure requirements?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
- Are any of these requirements similar enough in purpose and use so that they could
be consolidated?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
- Could any of the requirements under the rules in these 2 categories be fulfilled electronically to reduce
their burden?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
Consistency and Redundency - Do any of the regulations in these categories impose inconsistent or redundant regulatory requirements that
are not warranted by the circumstances?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
Clarity - Are the regulations in these categories and the underlying statutes drafted in clear and easily understood language?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
- Are there specific regulations or underlying statutes that need clarification?
Yes ______ No ______
Please explain.
Burden on Small Insured Institutions - NCUA has a particular interest in minimizing burden on small credit unions (those with less than $10 million in
assets). Should any of the regulations within the 2 categories be continued without change, or should any of the
regulations be amended or rescinded in order to minimize any significant economic impact the regulations may have on a
substantial number of small federally-insured credit unions?
Please explain.
Other - Other comments?
|
Eric Richard • General Counsel • (202) 508-6742 • erichard@cuna.com Mary Mitchell Dunn • SVP & Associate General Counsel • (202) 508-6736 • mdunn@cuna.com Jeffrey Bloch • Assistant General Counsel • (202) 508-6732 • jbloch@cuna.com Catherine Orr • Senior Regulatory Counsel • (202) 508-6743 • corr@cuna.com |
Copyright © 2012 Credit Union National Association
