NCUA headquarters. Credit/NCUA
The NCUA on Tuesday rolled out a series of proposed rulemakings targeted at eliminating outdated and duplicative regulations, marking one of the most expansive deregulatory pushes of the agency’s current review of its rulebook.
Across four separate Federal Register filings, the NCUA Board proposed rescinding long-standing regulations and interpretive policy statements covering fair lending, chartering and field-of-membership requirements, and corporate credit union oversight. Agency officials stressed that the proposals are intended to simplify compliance, not weaken statutory protections or alter supervisory expectations.
One proposal would fully repeal 12 CFR §701.31, the NCUA’s nondiscrimination regulation for federal credit unions. Adopted decades ago to summarize requirements under the Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the rule has not been substantively updated since 2001. The NCUA said maintaining its own version of fair lending standards risks confusion, as FHA, ECOA and CFPB Regulation B already apply directly to credit unions.
Three additional proposals focused on eliminating interpretive rulings and policy statements the agency now considers redundant. The NCUA is seeking to rescind IRPS 08-2 and IRPS 10-1, which historically guided chartering and field-of-membership decisions, including community chartering. The agency said all operative requirements are already consolidated in the Chartering and Field of Membership Manual, making the IRPS unnecessary.
A fourth proposal would rescind IRPS 11-02, which governs chartering federal corporate credit unions. Issued in the wake of the financial crisis, the guidance has largely outlived its purpose, the NCUA said, noting that no new corporate credit unions have been chartered in more than a decade and that current expectations are fully addressed in the Federal Corporate Credit Union Chartering Manual.
Collectively, the proposals aligned with Chairman Kyle Hauptman’s stated goal of reducing compliance burden, particularly for smaller credit unions, by narrowing the number of regulatory sources institutions must consult. Public comments on all four proposals will be accepted for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
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