In this emergency update of With Flying Colors, Mark breaks down a newly proposed NCUA rule that could meaningfully reduce barriers to serving on a federal credit union board.

The proposal would allow federal credit unions to reimburse or directly pay reasonable dependent care costs for volunteer officials when those costs are incurred while attending board meetings or performing official duties — including, potentially, training and conferences.

This is a narrow but important change that reflects rising childcare and eldercare costs, declining volunteerism, and the increasing demands placed on credit union boards.

Mark also shares brief updates on the Central Liquidity Facility (CLF), NCUA’s regulatory simplification efforts, and what’s coming next on the podcast following recent discussions at a credit union conference cruise.

🔍 What the Proposed Rule Would Do

• Applies to federal credit unions only (state charters follow state law)
• Allows reimbursement or direct payment of:
  • Childcare
  • Adult dependent care (elder care, disabled dependents)
• Covers costs incurred while:
  • Attending board meetings
  • Performing official duties (which may include training and conferences)
• Applies only to volunteer officials, not paid executives

🚫 What the Rule Does Not Do

• Does not allow reimbursement for:
  • Lost wages
  • Paid leave
  • Indirect costs of volunteering
• Does not change compensation rules under the Federal Credit Union Act
• Does not require credit unions to reimburse these costs — policies remain optional and discretionary
• Does not change IRS tax treatment — consult tax professionals for reporting requirements

💡 Why This Matters

• Childcare costs have increased more than 200% since 1990
• Volunteer participation has declined significantly since pre-pandemic levels
• Federal credit union boards:
  • Must meet at least 12 times per year
  • Cannot generally be compensated
• This proposal may help:
  • Attract younger and working-age professionals
  • Support caregivers and single parents
  • Improve diversity of experience and perspective on boards

🧭 What NCUA Is Asking for Public Comment On

NCUA is inviting industry feedback on:

• Whether reimbursement should be limited to temporary or incremental costs
• Whether training and conference travel should clearly qualify as official duties
• Documentation and internal control standards
• Best practices from state-chartered credit unions

Credit unions and board members are encouraged to submit comments during the open comment period.

🔜 What’s Coming Next on the Podcast

• A follow-up episode with Mark’s team discussing:
  • NCUA’s 2025 Supervisory Priorities Letter
  • What it really means for exams and operations
• Coverage of NCUA’s upcoming webinar on supervisory priorities (February 19)
• Continued “emergency update” episodes when time-sensitive issues break

www.marktreichel.com

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

In this special preview episode of With Flying Colors, Mark Treichel tees up an upcoming live, on-stage discussion from the Florida Q’s Cruise with team members Steve Farr and Todd Miller.

Just days before the cruise, NCUA released its 2026 Supervisory Priorities Letter, and as always, that letter gives us important clues about what examiners will be focused on in the year ahead — and just as importantly, what’s driving examiner behavior behind the scenes.

This episode serves as a primer for the deeper, post-cruise discussion, where we’ll incorporate real-time feedback and questions from credit union leaders attending the cruise.

🧭 Big Picture Theme: NCUA in Chaos

Before diving into technical priorities, Mark frames the conversation around what many credit unions are experiencing operationally:

• Leadership instability and fewer board actions
• Retirements, buyouts, and staffing losses
• Revolving and often less-experienced examiners
• Exams prioritized over approvals and strategic requests

Bottom line:

📌 What’s in the 2026 Supervisory Priorities Letter?

Mark walks through the major categories NCUA highlighted and why they matter:

🟦 Lending / Credit Risk

• Delinquencies and charge-offs at decade highs
• Focus on underwriting, concentrations, and workouts
• Continued scrutiny of commercial real estate and indirect lending

🟦 Liquidity & Interest Rate Risk

• Stress testing assumptions under closer review
• Structural liquidity constraints getting more attention
• Alignment between balance sheet strategy and risk appetite

🟦 Earnings & Capital Adequacy

• Sustainability of earnings under stress scenarios
• Capital planning tied directly to risk profiles
• More forward-looking analysis expected in exams

🟦 Payment Systems (Back as a Headline Topic)

• Real-time payments and complex integrations
• Vendor risk, data exposure, and cyber vulnerabilities
• Governance and internal controls over payments ecosystems

🟦 Fraud Prevention and Detection

• Internal controls and separation of duties
• Insider abuse explicitly called out
• Exam procedures being updated to reflect evolving fraud risks

🟦 BSA / AML Compliance Risk Management

• Shift away from broad consumer compliance narrative
• Stronger focus on risk-based AML programs
• Programs must be tailored to actual institutional risk

🔄 What’s Notably Different from Prior Years?

Mark also highlights important shifts compared to earlier supervisory letters:

• Cybersecurity is no longer a standalone headline — now embedded in Operational Risk and Payments
• Consumer financial protection is not emphasized as a top category
• Fraud and payment systems return after being absent for several years
• Governance expectations are increasingly embedded in every risk area

These changes align with what many credit unions are already experiencing in exams — more findings tied to process, oversight, and documentation, not just numbers.

🎤 What’s Coming After the Cruise

During the Florida Q’s Cruise, Mark, Steve, and Todd will be discussing:

• What credit unions are actually seeing in recent exams
• Where examiner expectations are rising fastest
• How governance findings are being framed
• What boards should be asking management right now
• How to manage regulatory uncertainty proactively

After the cruise, a full follow-up episode will bring those insights back to the broader audience.

🎯 Key Takeaway

The risks themselves haven’t changed dramatically — but NCUA’s capacity, processes, and delivery of supervision have.

Credit unions that adapt their governance, documentation, and strategic planning to that reality will be better positioned to manage both exam outcomes and approval delays in 2026 and beyond.

www.marktreichel.com

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

The clash between President Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has now expanded beyond interest rates — and into a $2.5 billion building renovation at the Fed.

Some see waste.
Some see politics.
Most people just see a number that’s hard to comprehend.

In this episode, I take a middle-ground look at what’s really going on:

• Why large government construction projects almost always cost more than planned
• Why political egos inevitably get involved
• And why $2.5 billion still deserves serious public context and scrutiny

Using real-world comparisons — from stacks of dollar bills reaching into space, to thousands of apartments, to centuries of spending at $1,000 an hour — we reset the conversation around scale, transparency, and accountability, without turning it into a partisan fight.

Because when budgets get this big, math matters more than megaphones.

Key Topics Covered

• Why billion-dollar numbers break our intuition
• Construction overruns: normal, but not meaningless
• How political power struggles complicate budget debates
• The opportunity cost of multi-billion-dollar projects
• Why public institutions owe the public real financial context

Who Should Listen

• Credit union and bank leaders
• Board members
• Policy and compliance professionals
• Anyone who wants less political theater and more financial reality

www.marktreichel.com

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

President Trump has called for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10%. It’s a headline-grabbing proposal — but can he actually do it, and what would it really mean for consumers, banks, and credit unions?

In this episode, Mark Treichel breaks down:

• Why presidents can “call for” caps but can’t impose them unilaterally
• Why credit card rates are high in the first place
• How a 10% cap could reduce access to credit, especially for lower-income borrowers
• Why rewards programs, grace periods, and credit limits could all be at risk
• How credit unions would be affected differently than large banks
• Why well-intended caps can push borrowers toward much worse alternatives like payday lending

Bottom line: It’s good politics, but it could be very bad policy — with consequences that hit the very people it’s supposed to help.

www.marktreichel.com

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

NCUA exam reports often contain more than meets the eye.

Examiner findings, supplementary facts, and documents of resolution may look like routine supervisory language — but each serves a distinct purpose and sends a different signal to credit union boards and management.

In this episode of With Flying Colors, Mark Treichel is joined by former NCUA senior leaders Steve Farr and Todd Miller to break down how exam reports are structured, how issues escalate, and what credit unions should be paying attention to long before enforcement actions appear.

Drawing on decades of NCUA experience, the discussion explains how examiners decide where issues belong in the report, why volume matters as much as severity, and how governance and communication failures often sit at the root of repeat findings.

This is an evergreen episode for any credit union executive, board member, or compliance professional who wants to better understand what NCUA is really saying — and how to respond effectively.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

• The practical differences between examiner findings, supplementary facts, and documents of resolution
• Why a long list of “minor” findings can be a major warning sign
• How supplementary facts are used to signal emerging risk and specialist concerns
• What elevates an issue into a document of resolution
• The SMART framework examiners are expected to use — and where it breaks down
• How unresolved issues contribute to CAMEL rating pressure
• Why corporate governance increasingly appears in exam reports
• The role communication plays in preventing escalation
• What boards should ask before approving a document of resolution

Who Should Listen:

• Credit union board members
• CEOs and executive leadership teams
• Compliance, risk, and governance professionals
• Credit unions preparing for an upcoming NCUA exam
• Institutions experiencing repeat findings or growing examiner scrutiny

Key Takeaway:

NCUA exam reports are not just compliance documents — they are communication tools. Understanding how examiners signal concern helps credit unions prioritize issues, respond proportionately, and avoid unnecessary escalation.

About the Host:

Mark Treichel is a former senior NCUA executive and the founder of Credit Union Exam Solutions. With more than three decades of regulatory experience, Mark helps credit unions understand NCUA expectations and navigate examinations with confidence.

This is a classic episode of With Flying Colors—and a rare one that steps slightly outside the credit union lane for a reason.

As teamwork becomes an increasingly critical theme heading into 2026, this conversation felt worth revisiting.

In this episode, Mark sits down with Joe Jacoby, an Olympic gold medalist and performance coach, to explore what high-performing teams really look like when conditions are uncertain and pressure is high.

While the setting is the Olympic Games, the lessons translate directly to leadership teams, boards, and organizations navigating complexity, change, and accountability.

This conversation isn’t about motivation—it’s about execution:

• How trust is built before it’s needed
• Why great teams communicate without noise
• How different strengths actually work together under stress
• And why teamwork isn’t soft—it’s strategic

If you lead, serve on a board, or work as part of a management team, the insights here are as relevant today as when this episode first aired.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What Olympic-level teamwork looks like in real time
• Why preparation matters more than celebration
• How unspoken communication develops inside high-trust teams
• The role of diversity of thought in performance
• Lessons leaders can apply long after the competition ends

www.marktreichel.com

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

In this quarterly roundtable episode of With Flying Colors, Mark Treichel is joined by former NCUA executives Dennis Bauer, Steve Farrar, and Todd Miller to break down the NCUA Q3 2025 Quarterly Credit Union Data Summary.

The discussion highlights a key theme: the credit union system is gradually returning to a more normal operating environment after years of rate shocks, pandemic liquidity, and balance-sheet distortion.

Key topics include improving net interest margins, rising non-interest expenses, and why ROA gains lag margin recovery. The panel examines growing pressure in auto and credit card portfolios, increased repossessions, and what delinquency trends suggest heading into 2026. They also explore liquidity stabilization, shifts in share mix, and renewed investment risk-taking as some credit unions bet on future rate cuts.

Additional insights include CAMEL rating trends, HELOC utilization growth, differences between credit union and community bank performance, and what examiner behavior may look like amid NCUA staffing constraints.

This episode is designed for credit union executives, board members, and risk leaders looking for plain-English interpretation of regulatory data—without spin or hype.

www.marktreichel.com

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

NCUA has launched a new Deregulation and Simplification Project, signaling a shift toward clearer, more flexible rules—without weakening safety and soundness.

In this episode of With Flying Colors, Mark Treichel breaks down the four proposed regulatory changes released by NCUA and explains what they mean in practice for credit unions, boards, and exam preparation.

Rather than a wholesale rewrite, this package focuses on clarity, structure, and regulatory housekeeping—especially around audits, corporate credit union governance, and cybersecurity guidance.

Key topics covered:

• Updates to Supervisory Committee audit rules (Part 715)
• Technical and governance clarifications for corporate credit unions
• Why cybersecurity guidance is moving out of regulation and into Letters to Credit Unions
• What’s not changing—despite the headlines
• How this project fits into broader NCUA budget and structural discussions

Mark also shares perspective on why moving guidance out of the CFR matters—and what credit unions should (and shouldn’t) do next.

More regulatory developments are coming fast, including NCUA’s upcoming board meeting and budget discussions. Stay tuned.