Nine items – including a proposal on risk-based net worth (complex threshold), an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on simplification of risk based capital requirements and four other final or proposed rules – are all on the federal credit union regulator board’s agenda for its Jan. 14 open meeting, which gets underway at 10 a.m. ET.
The board’s agenda for next week’s meeting was released Thursday.
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board meeting could also possibly be the last chaired by Rodney Hood, a Republican appointee. President-elect Joe Biden, once he is inaugurated Jan. 20, is expected to name Todd Harper, a Democrat appointee, chairman shortly after taking office.
Rulemaking for risk-based net worth and capital requirements has been on the board’s action item list since at least 2014. That year, the board first issued its risk-based capital proposal for “complex” credit unions – then defined as those with more than $100 million in assets – with implementation slated 18 months after the rule would have been finalized. A revised proposed rule was issued in 2015 and finalized that October with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2019.
That final rule was intended to replace the then- (and still now) effective risk-based net worth ratio with a new risk-based capital ratio for federally insured credit unions, which NCUA called comparable to the regulatory risk-based capital measures used by the federal banking agencies: the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), Federal Reserve, and Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC).
But in 2018, the board revised its definition of “complex” credit unions to include only those with more than $500 million in assets. It also delayed the rule’s implementation further, to Jan. 1, 2020.
In December 2019, the board delayed the implementation date again, to 2022 (and on a split vote, with Board Member Todd Harper voting no). At that 2019 meeting, NCUA Board Chairman Rodney Hood said delaying the effective date to 2022 woiuld give the agency time to consider new methods for strengthening credit union capital requirements, indicating that then was a good time to do so as credit unions enjoy strong capital positions.
Also at that meeting, then-NCUA Board Member J. Mark McWatters said the agency was considering “a suite of capital rules,” which would include a proposal for credit unions similar to the community bank leverage ratio (CBLR), adopted by the federal banking agencies in 2019. That rule, he indicated, would exempt credit unions with less than $10 billion in assets from complying with the risk-based capital requirements, if those credit unions meet certain requirements.
The other action items on the board’s open meeting agenda include: a proposed rule (part 712), on credit union service organizations (CUSOs); a final rule (and a board briefing) on statutory adjustment of civil money penalties (CMPs, part 747); a final rule (part 704), corporate credit unions; and a notice of proposed rulemaking (parts 700, 701, 703, 704 and 713), CAMELS rating system.
Following the board’s public meeting will be its closed (non-public) meeting, featuring six items – which include two supervisory actions, two personnel actions, a delegation of authority and a board briefing.