Kyle Hauptman is NCUA Chairman: What It Means for Credit Unions

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Kyle S. Hauptman Designated as NCUA Board Chairman

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Jan. 22, 2025) – President Donald J. Trump has
National Credit Union Administration Vice Chairman Kyle S. Hauptman as the thirteenth Chairman of the NCUA Board.

“I am deeply honored that President Trump has asked me to serve as Chairman of NCUA,” Chairman Hauptman said. “I look forward to leading the agency’s dedicated professionals and working with my Board colleagues to create a regulatory structure that promotes growth, opportunity, and innovation within the credit union system.

“My priorities as Chairman include:

• Re-examining the current NCUA budgeting process.
• Convening groups of NCUA employees to identify achievable internal efficiencies to reduce unnecessary frictions in the agency’s operations.
• Promoting the appropriate use of artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for NCUA employees. One goal is enhancing productivity, but it’s also true that regulators who use technologies are more apt to understand why the regulated use them.
• Focusing on true financial inclusion, which means removing barriers to de novo credit unions and removing the ‘pain points’ that have led to fewer and fewer small credit unions. NCUA should be mindful that the only people who think compliance is easy are those that don’t have to do it.
• Codifying our procedures to protect Americans from regulation-by-enforcement. For example, no enforcement action should ever set - even clarify - policy. In America and other free societies, the sequence is: set speed limits, then give speeding tickets (no one has any obligation to be aware of someone else’s ticket).
• Making clear that credit unions and their members are best positioned to assess their communities’ climate risks.
• Re-assessing NCUA policies that may, even inadvertently, dissuade credit unions from serving low-income areas. This includes language around overdraft policies, particularly for credit unions located in states with especially punitive government late fees/penalties.
• Right-sizing credit unions’ obligations where possible under the Bank Secrecy Act, including NCUA’s regulations surrounding Suspicious Activity Reports.”