The NCUA board on Thursday approved a plan to give regionaldirectors more discretion in scheduling exams for federal creditunions and federally insured, state chartered institutions.

Under the plan, exams for federal credit unions do not have tobe conducted every calendar year. However, the time between examsmay not exceed 23 months.

Likewise, for federally insured, state chartered credit unionswith assets exceeding $250 million, exams will not need to beconducted each calendar year. Instead, regional directors maychoose which of those institutions to examine based on severalfactors, including the risk profile of the institution, emergingtrends, the time that has lapsed since the last exam andcoordination with state regulatory agencies.