The National Credit Union Administration will get some face time with lawmakers this week as NCUA Chairman Rodney Hood heads to Capitol Hill for congressional testimony.
Hood will testify alongside other banking regulators at two hearings examining oversight of financial regulators. Hood will appear before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday and the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. He will be joined by Jelena McWilliams, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and Randal Quarles, vice chairman for supervision at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Senate Banking Committee’s ranking member, has previously criticized the credit union regulator for creating a video that lauded President Donald Trump. The NCUA is an independent agency.
“As chairman of the NCUA board, you are responsible for representing the ‘board and the National Credit Union Administration in its official relations with other branches of government and not the White House, the Trump Administration, or any political campaign,” Brown previously wrote in a letter calling on Hood to present a flurry of documents related to his more political activities.
According to Brown's office, the senator has not yet received a response from NCUA but will continue to press for answers ahead of this week's hearing with Hood.
NCUA declined to comment for this story.
Comments on the NCUA's proposed budget for 2020 to 2021 are due on Dec. 2, along with any comments on board member Todd Harper's proposal on regulating large credit unions.
In other banking-related news, the Fed approved 2020 fee schedules that the central bank provides to depository institutions, which is expected to bring a 2.4% price hike in the Fed’s services to financial institutions. Such services that credit unions use include accounting services, coin and currency services, educational seminars and more.
The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday that will examine proposals to enhance and protect consumer data privacy. Credit union trade organizations have called on lawmakers to enact a national consumer data privacy standard.
The House Financial Services Committee will hold two hearings on Thursday, one of which reviews the administration's deregulatory approach to financial stability. The other hearing on Thursday will examine the federal housing administration's impact on American homeownership. House Financial Services will also examine the impact of artificial intelligence on capital markets and relevant jobs in a hearing this Friday.
