A two-week lapse in National Credit Union Administration leadership in August raises questions about the agency’s ability to supervise the country’s $2 trillion credit union system, Sen. Elizabeth Warren contended Thursday.
From former Chair Kyle Hauptman’s departure from the NCUA on Aug. 7 until NCUA Chair John Crews’ swearing in on Aug. 24, all three NCUA board seats were vacant, the Massachusetts Democrat wrote in a letter to Marta Erceg, the NCUA’s acting inspector general.
In April 2025, two Democratic board members were fired and not replaced.
“The NCUA conducts a number of critical functions, including ensuring that the nation’s credit unions operate in a safe and sound manner, enforcing consumer protection and fair lending laws, and insuring members’ deposits,” wrote Warren.
“A lapse in fulfilling those responsibilities could be devastating for consumers, small businesses, and communities that rely on credit unions to meet their financial services needs,” she wrote.
Spokespeople for the NCUA OIG and NCUA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The lack of board members from Aug. 7 to Aug. 24 left the agency to “run on career staff and delegated authority” in a situation [that] “appears to have no obvious modern precedent among federal financial regulators,” Warren wrote, quoting a report from Law360.
Additionally, four days before Hauptmann left the NCUA, the agency initiated proceedings to liquidate the Saint Ann, Missouri-based African Diaspora Federal Credit Union due to insolvency and violations of federal credit union laws and regulations.
“As the operator of the Share Insurance Fund, the NCUA has a statutory duty to make payment to the insured depositors of a failed credit union ‘as soon as possible.’ It is unclear whether the vacuum of leadership at the board in August constrained or delayed staff’s ability to make timely payments to affected depositors,” Warren wrote.
Two phone numbers and an email associated with African Diaspora Federal Credit Union appear to have been disconnected.
In her letter, Warren asked Erceg to cite the statutory authorities under which the agency operated during its August lapse in leadership, and asked who, “if anyone,” was responsible for decision-making at the time.
Warren also asked why there was a 17-day gap between Crews’ confirmation and his swearing in, what efforts were made to ensure continuity of board leadership, and if the insured depositors of African Diaspora Federal Credit Union had been made whole.
