WASHINGTON - CUNA last week urged Congress to expand the NCUA Board from its current three members to a total of five and to lift prohibitions meant to keep the regulator from getting too cozy with credit unions - a provision allowing only a single member to have recent CU experience.
Under CUNA's proposal, one of the additional two NCUA Board seats would be reserved for a representative from state-chartered CUs, which make up more than a third of all federally insured CUs that are nominally regulated by NCUA. The National Association of State CU Supervisors made a similar call last week.
CUNA's request comes with one vacancy on the three-member panel, with another vacancy opening up in August. Unless one or two nominees are confirmed by the Senate before then - an unlikely prospect - there is the specter of a single sitting NCUA board member. Under the current system, each member of the NCUA Board serves a staggered six-year term. Two members of the board generally are appointed from the same party. No more than two members can come from the same party.
The prohibition on members being recently from the CU comunity has been debated in recent years, even while the last three NCUA Board members all had long careers in credit unions.
The restriction on having a single member with recent CU experience was enacted by Congress as part 1998's CU Membership Access Act, because of worries the NCUA Board would be "too close" to the industry.
