Get Up on Your Soap Box
Published October 31, 2014 3:06 PM
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Updated June 1, 2021 1:19 PM
1 Min Read
At Credit Union Journal's website, you can do more than just read about the news you can have your say about it, too. Here we present excerpts of comments recently posted by readers in response to the recent clash between NCUA Chairman Debbie Matz and NCUA Board Member Mark McWatters over the agency's handling of fraud at credit unions.
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"Good for you, Mark McWatters! Our thoughts exactly! People need to get out in the field to SEE what is going on fraud is huge, and its our biggest write off!! Where's the regulation when it comes to the merchants? They are accepting the cards, they are selling their merchandise, they are receiving the profits yet we as credit unions are paying for their sales."
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"I like McWatters. He seems to have a grasp of some of the real day-to-day issues facing credit unions. Small credit unions don't always have sufficient staff for proper separation of duties, which make insider fraud a greater risk than at larger credit unions. I'm sorry, Ms. Matz, but how can you take exception to McWatters' comment to 94% of the liquidation expense was because of fraud?"
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"With all due respect, credit unions are already engulfed in too many "promulgated" regulations issued not only by NCUA, but other federal and quasi-federal agencies. The expense burden to comply with all those regulations has been overwhelming for some time. More regulations merely means the exam expense will continue to rise and also adds to the overhead of the agency, which is substantially funded by credit unions already vis-a-vis the overhead transfer from the share insurance fund. Mr. McWatters makes an excellent point. This would be a terrific time for the agency to back burner more regulations and their burdensome nature while offering some assistance/guidance in helping credit unions control fraud as well as other invasions such as data breaches, validating third-party marketing protections, etc. that places increasing operating costs on credit unions and potentially heightens their reputation risk."
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"Back in 1978, when I was NCUA's examiner in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, in addition to my examiner duties (full time) I was able to work with five chartering groups in one year, getting five charters. I won the NCUA Administrator's award (there was no NCUA Board back then, just an Adminstrator). Now because of all the new regulations, to charter just one credit union would be more than a full-time job. This is not really NCUA's fault but where society is going. Perhaps we need a two-tier chartering system so as to better combat the high-interest-rate payday lenders. The lower tier would be just plain vanilla saving and loans. These exist (unchartered) in the Caribbean, Africa, South America, and even here in NYC."
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"Fraud is always the result of weak internal controls and weak oversight by management, the Board and the Supervisory Committee. NCUA also needs to do their job. They need to follow up on exam issues and take prompt action when exam issues are not resolved. NCUA needs to have more objective measures of the M in CAMEL and hold Boards, Supervisory Committees and mangement accountable for maintaining a good system of internal control. NCUA should conduct post failure reviews to determine what went wrong and publish the results. Most importantly they should hold staff accountable when their performance was not acceptable and helped cause a failure. No one at NCUA was ever held accountable for the corporate collapse. I welcome Mr. McWatters and his common sense."
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"I get the impression that Matz feels internal fraud losses at "small" CUs don't deserve more attention because the cost of more closely examining those CUs might be greater than simply eating the fraud losses."
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