Episode #451
FDIC and OCC Define Safety and Sound & What Credit Unions Should Take From It
www.marktreichel.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-treichel/ Safety and soundness has been referred to in examinations from here to eternity, and until now nobody could tell you where it was defined. The FDIC and the OCC have finalized a rule that puts a definition on “unsafe or unsound practice” for the first time, for both enforcement actions under 12 USC 1818 and supervisory activities. NCUA did not join. Mark Treichel is joined by Steve Farrar and Todd Miller of Credit Union Exam Solutions to work through what the rule actually says, why it reads a great deal like a section buried in NCUA’s own National Supervision Policy Manual, and what credit unions should take from a rule that does not apply to them. Steve Farrar spent the first part of his NCUA career in the field, predominantly as a problem case officer working conservatorships, liquidations, and assisted mergers. He then spent fifteen years in the central office in the Division of Risk Management, training examiners in problem resolution and working on the enforcement manual and risk-based capital, and finished as a vice president of the Central Liquidity Facility. Todd Miller spent 34 years at NCUA — fourteen as a problem case officer and examiner in the Western Region, a decade as a regional capital markets specialist with a hand in writing much of the agency’s interest rate risk and liquidity policy, and another decade as a director of special actions supervising problem case officers and regional specialists. The conversation covers where unsafe and unsound actually lives in the Federal Credit Union Act and in Part 741, the two-part test in the final rule, the shift from “merely possible” to “likely,” the exclusion of reputation risk that is not tied to financial condition, the tailoring provision that forces a directive to get more specific as potential losses grow, the two changes between the proposal and the final rule, and the new supervisory observations category that lets examiners share expertise without creating a requirement that goes to the board. It closes with Todd reading NCUA’s DOR criteria straight out of the NSPM — which, as he points out, rhymes.
