LAS VEGAS – NAFCU Director of Regulatory Affairs Michael Colemanpredicted on Wednesday that the NCUA would extend theimplementation period for the risk-based capital rule to at leastthree years.

NCUA Board Chairman Debbie Matz has said the phase-in period would be considerably longer than the 18 monthsspecified in the current proposal.

Coleman's comments were made during a legislative and regulatorypanel discussion at NAFCU's annual conference Thursday.

Carrie Hunt, NAFCU senior vice president of governmentaffairs/general counsel, moderated the discussion with Coleman,Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler, Vice Presidentof Political Affairs Katie Marisic and Director of LegislativeAffairs Jillian Pevo.

Matz delivered a speech on Wednesday at the conference oncybersecurity, interest rate risk and the proposed risk-basedcapital proposal.

“While members of Congress shared some specific concerns aboutcertain aspects of our proposed rule, most members with whom I havespoken personally support our efforts to modernize the capitalstandards for credit unions,” she said. “Even in the letter to mesigned by 324 members of Congress, they concluded that 'applyingrisk-based weighting certainly has value, and we appreciate theNCUA for taking on this task.'”

Thaler criticized Matz for only picking out one sentence of theletter signed by lawmakers about the NCUA's risk-based capitalproposal.

“Chairman Matz selectively quoted from the letter yesterdaytaking comments from one paragraph and ignoring the eight others,”Thaler said, drawing hearty laughs from the audience. “The key wordthat was in those other paragraphs was 'burden' – that's whatmembers of Congress have expressed to NCUA, that this is going tobe a burden on credit unions.”

In response to Thaler's comment, NCUA Public Affairs SpecialistJohn Fairbanks said, “The chairman clearly noted the concernsexpressed by the members of Congress and that they appreciated thevalue of risk-weighting.”

Matz did not mention requests from credit union executives for asecond comment period on the risk-based capital proposal at theagency's Listening Sessions this summer.

“There's no good reason for not having a second comment period,”Coleman said.