Expanded AIRES Loan and Share Record Layout

In 1995, NCUA introduced the Automated Integrated Regulatory Examination System (AIRES) to Federal examiners and State Supervisory Authorities. This software program is a significant technological improvement in the way we conduct credit union examinations. AIRES improves exam efficiency with its multi-tasking environment, easy navigation of worksheets, advanced loan and share queries, and faster importing of download files.

How does AIRES benefit you?

AIRES benefits both your credit union and NCUA. Easily imported loan and share downloads reduce the amount of time examiners need to spend in your credit union. In addition, data downloads allow examiners to spend more time assisting you and your credit union staff, rather than inputting data in their computers. Finally, the more data included in the downloads, the better your examiner can measure risks associated with your loan portfolio and overall internal controls.

What new fields are included in the expanded AIRES layout specifications?

Since NCUA introduced AIRES in 1995, requested data has been limited to 42 fields. Beginning June 30, 2003, the loan and share download request will increase by 17 fields to include a total of 40 critical data fields and 19 optional data fields in the AIRES loan and share download. Enclosed are the expanded AIRES loan and share record layout specifications with the new fields in bold. The 17 additional fields are included in the following table.

New AIRES Loan and Share Data Fields

• Share Records
  • Certificate Date Granted
  • Certificate Maturity Date
  • Dividend Rate
  • Date of Last Activity
  • Share Amount Frozen
  • Last Activity Code
  • Accrued Dividend Interest
  • Last File Maintenance Date
  • Last File Maintenance User Identity
• Loan Records
  • Credit Score
  • Charge Off Amount (If applicable)
  • Loan Risk Grade
  • Number of Remaining Payments
  • Loan Collateral Code
  • Last File Maintenance Date
  • Last File Maintenance User Identity
  • Branch Identity

Please work with your information systems vendor to modify your loan and share download files for exams with a June 30, 2003, effective date and going forward. In the past, NCUA provided standard codes to which you could map data for items such as loan or share type. Please note under the new layout specifications you provide your own codes, rather than mapping to NCUA standard codes. Your examiner will need a list of your credit union’s loan and share codes to accompany the loan and share download.

To ensure your loan and share download successfully imports in AIRES, at a minimum, you will need to provide data in the critical fields. NCUA will be happy to test sample fictitious loan and share download files to ensure they import into AIRES. You can e-mail your request and test files to EIMail@ncua.gov. Please allow a two-week response time.

How does NCUA safeguard member information?

For examination purposes, examiners have the authority and need to be able to access member data. To ensure control and confidentiality of your credit union’s member data, we adhere to the following procedures:

• Examiners obtain share and loan data downloads from your credit union. They do not obtain this data directly from your outside vendor without your credit union’s knowledge and authorization.
• Examiners will never enter your credit union’s computer system and extract data without the knowledge and permission of your credit union’s staff.
• Examiner computers are password protected. The examiners have been instructed to lock their computers when they leave their work area. To access the computer after shutting down or hibernation, the examiner must enter a user name and corresponding password.
• After each examination, the examiner destroys the loan and share data downloads. NCUA examination reports may contain some member data, but are NCUA property and considered confidential, privileged, and exempt from disclosure to the public.

In addition to these security procedures, your credit union has the option to scramble each member’s social security number in the AIRES loan and share download. You can provide any unique, alphanumeric identifier in the social security field, within the 12-digit character limit. The unique identifier must be consistent for the same member’s loan and share records.

This letter replaces Letter 00-CU-09.