The NCUA will perform separate examinations for state-chartered federally insured credit unions in North Carolina because the state regulator there allowed the $23 billion State Employees' Credit Union to publicize its CAMEL rating.
News Update:
Feb. 10, 2012 - NCUA Says Dual Exams Over, For Now
NCUA Region III Director Herbert S. Yolles wrote all North Carolina state-charted federally insured CUs that the move, which means that all those financial institutions will be subject to two annual examinations, was necessitated because all other attempts to resolve the situation failed.
He wrote that the disclosure of the CAMEL rating in October was "an unacceptable release of exempt records of the NCUA Rules and Regulations.''
Yolles added that federal law and his agency's regulations ban credit unions from disclosing information in examination reports, operating reports, or condition reports "prepared by, on behalf or for the use of one of the federal agencies responsible for the regulation or supervision of financial institutions.''
The release of CAMEL ratings "could cause great harm to the NCUSIF, all insured credit unions and their insured and uninsured depositors,'' he noted.
In October, after receiving permission from its state regulator, SECU announced that it had received a CAMEL 2 rating in its latest state examination, which was not conducted jointly with the NCUA.
State Credit Union Division Administrator Jerrie K. Jay told Credit Union Times that her agency had made its decision to let the credit union release its CAMEL rating after consulting with the state attorney general.
"Under state law, at my discretion I have the right to give permission to release a CAMEL rating. I worked with the attorney general's office and we didn't see how what we did violated federal laws,'' she said.
SECU President/CEO Jim Blaine said although his credit union has had separate state and federal examinations during the past several years because of its size, it is "unfair for the NCUA to punish other credit unions in the state and make them incur added expense. The NCUA is penalizing them because we did something that was legal under our state charter.''
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