Credit Union Exam Solutions Presents With Flying Colors

www.marktreichel.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-treichel/

 In this episode, Mark Treichel sits down with Lenwood Brooks — former chief of staff to NCUA Chairman Rodney Hood, former Director of Government and Industry Relations at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas, and now a managing director at Performance Trust Capital Partners — for a wide-ranging conversation about what happens to NCUA next.

Lenwood walks through the mechanics of Senate confirmation for nominee John Crews, including why the shift to en bloc cloture votes has compressed a process that took Kyle Hauptman four or five months down to a matter of weeks. He explains why confirming Crews is a step toward resolving the quorum question but not the resolution — the agency stays under what he calls a gray cloud until the board reaches at least two members or a court rules.

The conversation then turns to what recent removal-power litigation means in practice. If the reasoning in the Federal Trade Commission case holds, the six-year NCUA board term no longer functions as designed. Board seats become tied to a presidential administration, and Lenwood’s advice to credit unions is direct: prepare for the NCUA to run a lot more like the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, with drastic swings in supervisory priorities between administrations.

Mark and Lenwood also cover what it is like to arrive at NCUA as a political appointee amid an experienced career staff, why career staff become a force multiplier once they trust you, the trend of NCUA board members coming out of Senate Banking Committee staff rather than from credit unions, and the balance sheet lesson from March 2023 — that chasing yield and duration alone gives you a single-dimension picture of a multi-dimension problem.

Finally, Lenwood offers the observation credit union leaders will recognize immediately: examiners often do not appreciate that a passing comment can set off a fire drill in the C-suite that takes weeks to resolve. A whisper from an examiner comes across as a yell.

Reach Lenwood Brooks at lbrooks@performancetrust.com. For help preparing for your NCUA examination, responding to a Document of Resolution, or navigating the appeals process, contact Credit Union Exam Solutions at marktreichel.com.