NCUA Board Chairman Debbie Matz said gaining authority over credit union vendors is the agency's top legislative priority.
Matz also said she is not sure if the agency would need to hire more staff to exercise vendor oversight. Without the authority, she said the agency feels like its hands are tied since it cannot examine or issue enforcement actions against third-party vendors that are doing business with credit unions.
"It's been important all along but now in the age of cyberthreats, it's absolutely critical; it's essential; we need to have that authority to do our jobs properly," she said.
If the agency was granted the authority, Matz said the NCUA would be on the forefront of detecting cyberthreats. She vowed to remain aggressive in advocating for the authority in meetings with lawmakers.
Larry Fazio, NCUA director of examination and insurance, requested authority over third-party vendors during a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing on regulatory relief for credit unions and community banks.
Jack Antonini, president/CEO of NACUSO, said the NCUA seemed to be out of touch with the purpose of the hearing. He called the NCUA's request a sweeping expansion of regulatory authority that is at odds with the Senate Committee's stated goal of reducing regulatory burdens.
"Instead of suggesting how NCUA can help meet the growing need of credit unions and credit union service organizations to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens, NCUA took the opportunity to ask Congress for additional regulatory authority," he said.
Antonini said the NCUA is already able to track what CUSOs are doing though their regulation of credit unions that own CUSOs. He argued that CUSOs are hardly a systemic risk and there have been very few CUSO failures.
"We would submit that, where there have been occasional CUSO failures, they did not result from a lack of NCUA authority over third-party vendors and CUSOs but rather a failure of NCUA to effectively utilize the authority the Agency already has under existing law and regulation," he said.
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