"Today's action by the NCUA only adds to the long list of reasons why members of Congress need to question whether this regulator is doing its job or simply promoting the runaway growth of an industry it's supposed to be overseeing," he said, following Thursday's NCUA board meeting.

A divided NCUA board on Thursday voted 2-1 to seek comment on an additional delay for the RBC rule. Last year, the board, which at that point only had two members—Republican J. Mark McWatters and Democrat Rick Metsger—voted to change the effective date from 2019 to 2020.

With Metsger gone and Republicans Rodney Hood and McWatters, as well as Democrat Todd Harper leading the agency, the board voted to push the effective date back to 2022.

Harper voted against the plan.

As proposed last year, the rule requires a "complex" credit union that becomes undercapitalized to take prompt corrective action to restore its net worth.

Originally, a complex credit union was defined as one with $100 million in assets. When the NCUA board delayed the rule for an additional year, that threshold was increased to $500 million.

Credit union trade groups have opposed the rule since it was issued in 2015.

"As the rule currently stands, NAFCU remains concerned about the regulatory burdens and costs the rule will place on credit unions," said NAFCU President/CEO B. Dan Berger.

Berger said it is particularly important that the agency reexamine the rule because last year's regulatory overhaul bill made changes to bank capital requirements.

The delay would "give the agency time to examine ways to ensure the risk-based capital standard is appropriate to the risk profile of the credit union system and consistent with federal law," Donovan said.

NASCUS was pleased with the delay, but also praised NCUA Board Chairman Rodney Hood for saying that the board will consider a rule on subordinated debt in the coming months.

"We agree with Chairman Hood that it is 'sensible' for credit unions to use subordinated debt to meet capital requirements and protect the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund," said NASCUS President/CEO Lucy Ito. "We have long held that subordinated debt should be a part of the risk-based capital framework because it encourages well-managed credit unions to attract additional loss-absorbing forms of capital that they would otherwise forego.

Former NCUA Chairman Dennis Dollar said there have been changes in the marketplace since the board first considered an RBC rule.

"With a supplemental capital regulation possibly on the horizon and considerable changes in the marketplace driven by competition and new potential disruptors every day, making sure NCUA gets the risk weights and calculations right in RBC is absolutely essential before it becomes effective," he said.

He said that it is likely that the board will reexamine the rule and make it more flexible on a credit-by-credit union basis.

But Nichols said that banks have had to comply with Risk-Based Capital rules since 2014, so it defies logic why the NCUA would again delay the rules.

He said the delay is even more "troublesome" considering recent losses that led to the failure of credit unions that made many taxi medallion loans.