The Government Accountability Office probe into regulatory capture among financial service regulators was expanded to include the NCUA and other regulators, a key GAO official confirmed Thursday.

“Supervisory independence is something all relevant entities should be thinking about – we certainly think about it at GAO,” Lawrance Evans, the GAO's director of financial markets and community investment, told CU Times.

In March, the GAO said it was investigating whether the New York Fed was being too lax in supervising banks under its oversight. That probe came as a result of a request from House Financial Services Committee ranking Democrat Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), ranking Democrat on the panel's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

That same month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the regulatory process was biased in favor of industries being regulated. 

The initial probe recently was expanded, Evans said.

“To provide Congress with a full appreciation of the potential for regulatory capture in financial sector regulation we have included all the prudential depository intuition regulators in our scope at this time — the Federal Reserve, OCC, FDIC and NCUA,” he said.

Evans added the GAO does not have a timeline for its probe, saying that the agency is still determining the scope of its work.

“The methodology we employ and Congressional needs are among those factors that ultimately determine when we report out,” he said.

Asked about the investigation, NCUA Public Affairs Specialist John Fairbanks said, “We look forward to working with GAO on its review.”