As Prepared for Delivery on February 26, 2026
Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Warren, and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to discuss the National Credit Union Administration.
Last January, I was honored to be selected by President Trump to serve as the 13th Chair of the NCUA.
I’d also like to thank SEC Chairman Atkins for my recent appointment to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
I intend to continue to serve as the NCUA Chairman until my successor is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
NCUA’s mission is to enable access to financial services by facilitating safe, sound, and resilient credit unions.
Approximately 4,300 credit unions with more than $2 trillion in assets serve 145 million members.
Federal credit unions serve Americans in all 50 states, and 45 states have state-chartered credit unions. The overall system is safe and sound, with healthy levels of capital and moderate growth.
At NCUA, one of our priorities is making sure our own activities are fair and transparent.
I’m pleased to say that this past October, the NCUA codified a policy of “No Regulation By Enforcement.”
To be clear, NCUA has a good track record regarding regulation-by-enforcement, so this new codified policy shouldn’t be viewed as a response to past NCUA actions. After all, it’s counterproductive for a deposit insurer to engage in regulation-by-enforcement against the same people that we insure.
This new policy states that enforcement action should never set policy, that enforcements can’t take the place of rulemaking or guidance, that fines and press releases aren’t how the public is supposed to find out what is or isn’t a violation. Thus, NCUA’s new policy is just basic American fairness, and it’s how most people think our government should operate.
For example, every senator on this committee expects that, in America or any free society, the sequence of events is supposed to be: first, set speed limits, then give out speeding tickets.
But with financial regulation, that hasn’t always been the case. We’ve all witnessed regulators behave in ways clearly designed to boost their annual enforcement totals.
I’ve personally witnessed Americans ask agencies what the rules are, and the regulator responding “you’ll have to see what enforcements we take.” That, to put it mildly, should never happen.
Thus, I’m proud we at little NCUA are doing our part via our publicly available policy statement, one that’s purposely difficult to reverse in the future.
Beyond that, we’re right-sizing our approach to safety and soundness a few different ways, capitalizing on the opportunities created by the Trump Administration to foster innovation.
As a first priority, last December, NCUA launched the NCUA Deregulation Project – a long-term initiative aimed at meticulously reviewing and revising regulations to remove any that are obsolete, duplicative of statute, intended to serve as guidance, or unduly burdensome.
It’s a spring-cleaning of sorts, one necessary at any monopoly government agency, where the pile of regulations and paperwork grows ever higher with little regard for its cost.
One thing I’ve learned in my line of work is that the only people who think compliance is easy are those that don’t have to do it.
NCUA currently has 21 Notices of Proposed Rulemaking available for public comment in the Federal Register, with more expected. Four Notices of Proposed Rulemaking have closed and comments are under review.
For the GENIUS Act, our proposed rule on the application process for stablecoin issuers is already public, and the next rule on issuer standards is in process.
Credit unions are well poised to benefit from this long-overdue update to America’s outdated payment ecosystem.
Beyond the consumer benefits, stablecoins are a golden opportunity to stimulate demand for US Treasuries, to keep borrowing costs manageable and to retain the US dollar’s status as the global reserve currency.
We, as Americans, may have gotten so used to the dollar’s global dominance that we don’t notice what an advantage we have. But just ask the British what it’s like when it is gone.
But the GENIUS Act and dollar-denominated stablecoins are a way of striking back against those in Beijing or Moscow who continually push for the US dollar to become less important, less ubiquitous and less useful.
Thus, I’m pleased to be working with colleagues here at this table to do our piece of this important effort.
My written testimony discusses the current state of the credit union system and provides an overview of the state of the agency.
It also details the work we are doing to empower credit unions and foster innovation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the Committee’s questions.