ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Call reports and exam schedules were hot topics at the National Credit Union Administration's monthly Board meeting Thursday, as the regulator eyes substantial changes to both.
No specific action resulted from the regulator's first-ever "board briefing" discussion, though new Chairman Rick Metsger said NCUA will likely extend the due date for second quarter call reports because of the Fourth of July holiday and expects to establish an end-of-month deadline by the end of 2016.
Metsger designed the
The regulator did announce plans to create two working groups, one to study the agency's exam cycle, with an eye toward possibly extending it from the current 12 month intervals to
The second group will study NCUA's call-report format, which hasn't been overhauled in more than a decade according to Larry Fazio, director of the agency's Office of Examination and Insurance.
Metsger, who
Once the rest of the group's membership is decided, Metsger said he expected it to get to work quickly, adding he would like to have a report with recommendations in his hands before the end of 2016.
"NCUA is committed to continual quality improvement," he said. "We are therefore carefully examining our processes and operations, asking how NCUA can make these better and more efficient for stakeholders and useful for NCUA. Through this request for information, NCUA will seek to identify ways to reduce or eliminate any potentially unnecessary call report burdens and improve NCUA supervision. We will also use this information to find ways to streamline the quarterly reporting process, especially for smaller, non-complex credit unions."
Credit unions have long called for longer breaks between exams and McWatters said that if NCUA had responded to their requests earlier, a longer cycle might already be in effect. "That said, I comment the chairman very much for getting the ball rolling. Better late than never," he said.
Similarly, Fazio said plans are in the works to adjust the deadline for submission of quarterly call reports.
Beginning with the Dec. 31, 2016, call report, Fazio said NCUA plans to move the deadline back to the last business day of the month that follows the end of the reporting period. Under his plan, the fourth-quarter reports would come due the last business day in January.
The call report working group will be staffed with NCUA's top examiners and analysts. Their job will be to solicit input and comment from as broad a cross-section of stakeholders as possible, according to Mark D. Vaughan, who serves as director of NCUA's division of analytics and surveillance.
While no timetable for the group's work has been established, both Metsger and Fazio said they expected it to take a comprehensive, nothing-off-the-table look at the call report.
"What we're talking about is transformative," Metsger said.
"We want the group to be as interactive as possible, with telephone, and in-person meetings," Fazio said, adding that "it would be nice to leverage technology like Skype."
In other news, NCUA Chief Financial Officer Rendell L. Jones said recent recoveries from legal settlements would permit the agency to pay down $700 million of its debt to the Treasury Department. The payment is scheduled for May 27 and will leave a balance of $1 billion from the sum NCUA borrowed to settle the corporate credit union crisis.
McWatters, who was frequently on the losing end of 2-1 votes during Matz' term, said he appreciated the new way of doing business under Metsger.
"I very much look forward to working with you," McWatters said. I'm glad the President did the right thing. Let's get to work and make some progress.
