NCUA Wants to Avoid another S&L Like Crises

LAS VEGAS (CU Times 4-28-2011) — Tackling the current CUSO environment from a number of fronts, the NCUA said Wednesday it wants to do all it can to keep an S&L-like crisis from occurring within the credit union industry.

One measure will be working more closely with state regulators to see get an "overall picture of systemic risk" with CUSOs, NCUA Board Member Gigi Hyland said at the National Association of Credit Union Service Organizations' annual meeting in Las Vegas.

She said state regulators tend to oversee only the areas they have authority over. The NCUA would like to talk to these agencies to get a better handle on what CUSOs are doing, she added.

One concern raised from an attendee was whether regulatory burdens will arise as multiple agencies could potentially have an overlap of authorities. "We don't want to become a mini SEC," Hyland said. "Vendor authority seems like a win-win because we can go in, identify problems and fix them. We don't want to conserve credit unions. We're not in the business to do that."

Gary Kohn, NCUA senior policy advisor, also told NACUSO conference attendees that the S&L crisis is an strong example of what may happen if problems are not identified early on and addressed.

"The question is if we had vendor authority [over some of the recent financially troubled credit unions], would it have prevented some of the losses," Kohn said.

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