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BOARD MEMBER HYLAND OFFERS SMALL CREDIT UNIONS PRACTICAL ADVICE

November 20, 2006, Alexandria, VA – National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board Member Gigi Hyland was the featured speaker on Saturday, November 18 in Queens, New York before the 19th Small Credit Union Workshop, sponsored this year by NCUA. Hyland stressed that she wanted to provide Workshop participants with “practical information to help you when you go back to your credit unions. I want you to think about a results-oriented approach to anything you do for your members.”

“For example,” Hyland remarked, “in your credit union’s efforts to help members avoid becoming victims of predatory lending practices, before offering them financial literacy training, why not teach it to your own staff?  Not only will it help your employees in their personal lives, but it will also better enable them to be effective teachers to your members. You might also want to concentrate much of your effort on college students, who through over-exposure to credit cards become debt-ridden before they even enter their professional careers. And for those who are in the lower income category, you may want to help tax filers avoid predatory loans by providing Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA).”

“Finally,” Hyland concluded, “when it comes to your relationship with NCUA, the most important thing to remember is that your examiner is your closest link to the agency.  Examiners can serve as a resource to your credit unions. Any dialogue with them should be two-way so that credit unions can be flexible in meeting members’ needs in a safe and sound manner. And in that regard, do not be afraid to challenge your examiners, but first be sure that you have documented what you have done and are able to present that documentation to the examiner.  If you do that, I can assure you that it will help you and your examiners understand what each of you were thinking about and lead to a more meaningful exam process.”

The National Credit Union Administration is the independent federal agency that regulates, charters and supervises federal credit unions. NCUA, with the backing of the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, also operates and manages the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF), insuring the deposits of over 85 million account holders in all federal credit unions and the majority of state-chartered credit unions.