Understanding NCUA’s Examiners Guide and the National Supervision Policy Manual (NSPM)

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🧭 Episode Summary

In this special archive episode of With Flying Colors, I sit down with my longtime colleagues and former NCUA veterans Todd Miller and Steve Farrar to break down the real-world significance of two foundational NCUA documents: the Examiners Guide and the National Supervision Policy Manual (NSPM).

We explore how these resources have evolved, why NCUA developed the NSPM, and what it means for consistency—and transparency—in federal credit union supervision today.

📝 Key Takeaways

• The Examiner’s Guide isn’t what it used to be. It’s outdated, full of broken links, and largely replaced by internal-only resources.

• The NSPM enforces consistency, but with red tape. Regional discretion is down, but bureaucracy is up—and some critical areas are hidden behind redactions.

• Transparency is decreasing. Credit unions can no longer access examiner job aids, and key risk thresholds—like those for concentration risk—are fully redacted.

• You still have tools—but you need to know where to look. The NSPM outlines regulatory processes and response timelines (like 30-day windows for administrative actions), but they’re buried.

• FDIC and OCC are more transparent. NCUA lags in public access to exam processes, even though it’s still using numeric thresholds behind the scenes.

💬 Quote from the Episode

“Concentration risk causes the greatest NCUA losses—and yet it’s where the agency is least transparent. That’s a problem.”— Todd Miller, Former NCUA Director of Special Actions

For the entire story checkout the podcast link above.