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Portal will Streamline Complaint Process; Use is Voluntary; Registration Required

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Nov. 12, 2015) – Credit unions can now resolve consumer complaints more efficiently through the National Credit Union Administration’s Consumer Assistance Center online portal, the agency announced today.

Credit unions can now use the portal, located on NCUA’s MyCreditUnion.gov (opens new window)site, to receive correspondence from the Consumer Assistance Center about complaints concerning them, to send responses and complaint information, and to check the status of complaints concerning their institutions that were filed with the Consumer Assistance Center since Aug. 24, 2015. Information contained within the portal is not accessible by the public.

To help credit unions with questions about the Consumer Assistance Center portal, NCUA has created a series of frequently asked questions (opens new window) available on the agency’s website.
Using the portal is voluntary; however, registration is required. Credit unions that want to use the portal must request access by emailing the Consumer Assistance Center at consumeraffairs@ncua.gov.

The email requesting access must be sent by the credit union’s chief executive officer—or its senior manager, if the credit union does not employ a chief executive officer—and must include the chief executive officer’s name, work email address and work telephone number. The registration verification process will take NCUA between 10 and 15 business days to complete. Once the verification process is complete, credit unions that have sent registration requests will receive confirmation from the Consumer Assistance Center, at which point they will be granted portal access.

The Consumer Assistance Center has implemented new complaint resolution procedures that improve and streamline how the agency handles consumer complaints involving federal consumer financial protection laws and regulations. NCUA informed federally insured credit unions about these improvements in a Letter to Credit Unions in June.

Under the new complaint handling procedures, a complaint filed with the Consumer Assistance Center involving a federal consumer financial protection matter will be sent to the credit union, which will have 60 days to resolve the problem directly with the consumer and inform the agency of the outcome. If the complaint remains unresolved, the Consumer Assistance Center may begin its own investigation to determine compliance with federal consumer financial protection laws and regulations.