NCUA Inspector General to Study Agency Consumer Protection Efforts
The IG lists a study of the how well the NCUA ensures CUs protect their members as a “discretionary audit” for 2020.
The NCUA’s Inspector General intends next year to probe whether the agency does an effective job of ensuring that credit unions adequately protect their members – a contentious issue among board members.
In its 2020 Performance Plan, the IG’s office listed audits it plans to make, as well as audits it is required to make.
Among the “discretionary audits” listed for 2020 is a study of the NCUA’s consumer protection efforts.
As the agency board considered the NCUA’s 2020 budget, board member Todd Harper asked that three new staff members be added to the agency to develop a separate consumer protection board.
The three new staff members were not included in the spending plan, and at the board’s December meeting, Harper said he was disappointed that he and Chairman Rodney Hood had been unwilling to compromise on adding two staff members.
Board member J. Mark McWatters said he was inclined to support Harper but added that would result in the agency failing to adopt the budget.
In its performance plan, the IG’s office noted the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council in 2016 issued a revised Uniform Interagency Consumer Compliance Rating System.
That system is “a supervisory policy for evaluating financial institutions’ adherence to consumer compliance requirements and was designed to more fully align with the FFIEC agencies’ current risk-based, tailored examination approaches,” the IG report stated.
Under the system, each financial institution is given a consumer compliance score, the IG said, adding that the NCUA integrates the principles and standards of the FFEIC rating process as part of its examinations of credit unions.
The IG said the study will determine whether by using that process, the NCUA “adequately assesses a credit union’s ability to effectively manage consumer compliance risk.”
The performance report did not indicate when that study is expected to be completed.
Separately, the IG’s office said in the Performance Report that it will be conducting a study to determine whether the agency’s Consumer Assistance Center processes consumer complaints “efficiently and effectively.”