America’s Credit Unions offers recommendations for NCUA records preservation program
America’s Credit Unions Regulatory Advocacy Senior Counsel Luke Martone outlined several recommendations for the NCUA’s existing records preservation program requirements, noting that updating the regulations “to address these general issues will go a long way in clarifying regulatory expectations under Part 749.”
The agency issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to seek stakeholder comments on ways to improve and update the records preservation program regulations during its April meeting.
“We appreciate the Board’s effort to pursue this rulemaking, which was developed, in part, through recent feedback from America’s Credit Unions’ Small Credit Union Committee,” wrote Martone. “This is a great example of how the industry and the agency can work together on relatively straightforward, non-controversial regulatory modernization to reduce the compliance burden on credit unions, allowing them to focus on serving members.”
Martone offered suggestions regarding the definition of “vital records” in section 749.1, as well as recommendations to update the records retention requirements in Appendix A. In addition, he outlined several areas in both Appendix A and Appendix B that could be updated and clarified. Given confusion regarding the interplay of regulation and guidance in Part 749, he also urged the NCUA to “communicate unequivocally in the regulation, as well as to its examination staff, that credit unions have latitude to operate their records preservation programs as they deem proper, consistent with regulatory requirements.”
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