NCUA Expands New Consumer Affairs Office

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA is looking to lease additional office space outside its headquarters while it renovates space to accommodate new agency hires, particularly in the newly created Office of Consumer Affairs.

The consumer affairs office, created as Congress was developing plans for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, currently has three full-time employees but is planning to add full-time personnel by the end of September. The NCUA board funded the new office with $1.5 million for this year and plans to hire as many as 30 staff.

The office currently is headed by Kent Buckham, former chief corporate credit union examiner, with Tonya Green serving as director of consumer compliance and outreach and Robert Leonard as director of consumer access.

The additional hiring comes as the Treasury Department is soliciting NCUA and other financial regulators for employees who are trained in consumer issues to join the new consumer bureau, which will be housed inside of the Federal Reserve. No decision has been made as to how many staff will be transferred from each agency or type of discipline being sought from each agency. Any transfer of NCUA employees will have to be negotiated with NCUA’s employee union, the National Treasury Employees Union.

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