WASHINGTON Credit unions and banks succeeded in getting Congress to reintroduce a bill that would create a new examinations appeals process out of NCUA and banking regulators.
The bill, which was introduced in the last Congress but never voted, would make available to credit unions the information used to make decisions in their examination. It also would codify certain examination policy guidance and establish an ombudsman at the Federal Financial Institution Examination Council, through who credit unions and banks could appeal their exam findings.
The bill, which was introduced in the House and the Senate this week, represents pushback from credit unions and banks, which have seen examiners increase their scrutiny since the onset of the financial crisis.
NCUA and banking regulators opposed the bill in the last Congress, saying it would create a new layer of costly and time-consuming bureaucracy and that the current appeals process is adequate. David Marquis, who was executive director of NCUA at the time, last year told lawmakers NCUA believed the bill would increase costs for the agency that will be passed on to credit unions, and that bank regulators would be pressed to prove their examiners’ competence in disputed cases.
