In the summer of 2018, I interned at the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) in the Office of Consumer Financial Protection (OCFP). Separated into two different divisions which are formally known as, the Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA) and the Office of Consumer Compliance Policy and Outreach (CCPO), I predominantly worked in the Office of Consumer Policy and Outreach under the leadership of Director Joe Goldberg.

During my tenure with OCFP, I completed two major projects for the CCPO department. For my first project, I created an email database which contained all archived questions received by our department from credit examiners along with the corresponding answers that have been sent out by the OCPO team. As our department, along with the Office of General Counsel (OGC), received an outstanding amount of consumer compliance and fair- lending questions from credit examiners and the industry, it was often difficult for us to keep track of the answers that were sent out. To alleviate issues of non-compliance from credit unions as a consequence of their businesses receiving differing responses from CCPO and OGC, my team created a database of guidelines to ensure uniform answers from both departments and eliminate the time-consuming process of searching through emails to recover previous answers to similar questions that were received in the past.

For my second project, I assisted in reorganizing CCPO’s storage drive. The storage drive was an integral resource to CCPO as it held all relevant Consumer Compliance Acts, Consumer Compliance regulations and procedures, in addition to sensitive PDF files from Credit Unions.

Beyond my projects, I researched several regulations that were enforced by CCPO and a variety of Consumer Compliance Acts such as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and the Home Mortgage and Disclosure Act (HMDA). At the end of the summer, I assisted a credit examiner with a credit union examination in Hyattsville, Maryland. The purpose of the credit examination was to ensure the credit union was compliant with all federal, state, local and NCUA law and regulations.

I had a remarkable experience at the NCUA. Joe was a great resource and played an integral role in my professional development. He gave me the flexibility to explore new concepts and find solutions for critical problems while allowing me to use him a soundboard if any difficulties arose. The CCPO offered support and assistance in all of my office tasks.