Credit Union National Association (CUNA) today wrote to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) urging Director Kathy Kraninger to delegate the supervision of credit unions over $10 billion in assets to the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA).
Currently, only eleven of the nearly 5,500 credit unions have assets greater than the $10 billion threshold and are subject to the CFPB’s examination and enforcement authority. CUNA believes the Bureau should use its authority to delegate supervision based on the credit unions’ history of consumer protection, the support this action has received from NCUA, the protections in the Dodd-Frank that preserve the Bureau’s authority, and the opportunity this presents to apply these supervisory resources to other critical Bureau priorities.
Data from the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database shows how differently credit unions treat their members compared to other providers. At the highest level, each of the five largest banks has been the subject of more consumer complaints individually than the entire credit union industry. Overall, credit unions have been subject to 8,336 complaints since the Bureau began accepting consumers complaints, which represents 0.66% of all complaints submitted to the Bureau.
CUNA believes credit unions are best positioned to succeed when supervised and examined by a regulator particularly familiar with their unique characteristics, and there is no regulator more familiar with credit unions than NCUA.
Read the letter in full here.