Within the next two months, the NCUA intends to remove the requirement that all federally insured, state chartered credit unions with more than $250 million in assets be examined each calendar year, new NCUA Chairman Rick Metsger said Thursday.

In a speech prepared for the Idaho Credit Union League, Metsger also said he is forming a working group to review the overall examination process – including the frequency of exams.

“We need to see how we meet our statutory responsibility to examine credit unions for safety and soundness with as small a footprint as possible,” Metsger said.

NCUA Board Member J. Mark McWatters has already endorsed the idea of extending the examination cycle and several members of Congress have endorsed it as well.

Metsger added he wants to look at how to reduce the amount of time examiners spend onsite at credit unions, as well as the frequency of examinations when performance standards for safety and soundness justify a longer cycle.

“To begin this process, we must first remove the requirement that every federal credit union, and all federally insured, state chartered credit unions with more than $250 million in assets, be examined each calendar year,” Metsger said. “This prescriptive requirement creates a logjam of exams at the end of each year, which is neither effective nor efficient.”

The goal, Metsger said, is to implement this change within the next two months. He said removing the calendar year requirement will not change the general objective of examining each credit union every year; instead, the move represents a first step toward establishing a longer examination cycle for well-managed credit unions.

He said the working group will be similar to one that was formed to develop the NCUA's proposed field of membership rule. He said enhanced technology should allow the NCUA's examiners to collect data without having to make onsite visits.

Earlier this year, the FDIC approved a joint interim final rule that raised the asset size of banks eligible for 18-month exam cycles to $1 billion. The previous threshold for 1-rated banks was $500 million.

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NCUA to Reduce Exam Frequency: Metsger

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