On Jan. 14, 2026, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) announced its 2026 supervisory priorities, outlining key areas to focus on and information to help credit unions prepare for examinations. Similar to previous year’s, the agency will continue to emphasize risk-based supervision, tailoring the exam scopes to credit union’s unique risk profile. 

Doeren Mayhew’s credit union pros have highlighted the key areas below: 

• Balance Sheet Management:
  • Lending - With loan delinquency and charge-offs at its highest point in a decade, examiners will review credit risk management practices, underwriting standards and liquidity planning. Specific credit administration areas that will be a focus of examiners are loan underwriting, loss mitigation and the allowance for credit loss reserves and methodologies. Examiners will also focus on portfolio monitoring and credit risk concentrations, lending, and servicing and/or collection functions outsourced to third parties.  
  • Interest Rate Risk – Elevated funding costs, declining asset quality and liquidity constraints continue to impact earnings, net margin and potentially net worth. Examiners will continue to review credit union’s ability to monitor and control interest rate risk as well as liquidity risk.
  • Earnings and Capital Adequacy – The above factors pose risk to earnings and capital levels. Examiners will be evaluating whether current and prospective sources of earnings are sufficient to support capital targets under a series of interest rate ranges, credit performance estimates and liquidity stresses.
• Operational and Compliance Risk: Evolving technology continues to pose new risks to financial institutions. Therefore, examiners will conduct their reviews with a continued emphasis on fraud prevention, payment systems security and compliance with consumer financial protection laws.
• Efficiency and Innovation: The agency will execute streamlined examination processes and align with recent legislative and executive directives, including the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.

Keeping these priorities in mind, leveraging a third-party provider, such as Doeren Mayhew, can help your credit union mitigate risk, prevent fraud and ensure compliance before any of them negatively impact your organization. Whether you’re looking to have a risk assessment performed or need regulatory compliance support, we stand ready to help.