Final rules on voluntary mergers, membership highlight CU regulator June 21 agenda

Final rules on voluntary mergers and credit union membership are on the agenda for the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board meeting June 21.

The board will also hear briefings on the modernization of its systems and on its recent change to business lending rules.

On voluntary mergers, the NCUA Board proposed rule changes in June 2017 that would, among other things:

  • revise and clarify the contents and format of the member notice;
  • require merging federal credit unions (FCUs) to disclose all merger-related financial arrangements for covered persons (currently only material increases need be disclosed);
  • Expand the pool of covered individuals required to disclose compensation;
  • increase the minimum member notice period;
  • provide for member-to-member communications regarding the proposed merger;
  • make conforming amendments to regulations governing termination of federal share insurance when the continuing credit union is not a federal credit union.

On chartering and field of membership, the agency in October 2016 proposed amending its chartering and field of membership rules to give applicants for community charter approval the opportunity to submit a narrative to establish common interests or interaction among residents of the area it proposed to serve, thus qualifying the area as a well-defined local community.

The agency also proposed to increase up to 10 million the population limit on a community consisting of a statistical area or portion thereof. In addition, NCUA proposed permitting a credit union to designate a portion of the area as its community without regard to division boundaries, when such area is subdivided into metropolitan divisions.

In other action, the board will hear an update (briefing) on the status of its efforts to modernize its systems (referred to as the “Enterprise Solution Modernization Program Update”) and a briefing on its final rule changing its member business lending regulations to conform with the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act (S. 2155, signed into law by President Donald Trump May 24). On June 5, changes conforming the agency’s rules with provisions affecting credit union business lending went into effect; the board approved the rule change by notation vote May 30.

NCUA Board meeting agenda, June 21