NCUA’s proposal to issue exemptions from Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) regulations could benefit credit unions and should be adopted “as soon as reasonably practical,” CUNA wrote to the agency Monday.

“We support this proposed rule, as we believe it will enhance the NCUA’s ability to provide flexibility to credit unions in regard to SAR filing requirements under the NCUA’s regulation,” the letter reads. “We recognize that the rule would impact exemptions from the SARs regulation in order to grant relief to credit unions that develop innovative solutions to meet the requirements of the BSA. Even so, we belief the rulemaking has the potential to provide meaningful relief to certain credit unions in some instances.”

This proposal would allow NCUA to issue exemptions from the requirements of its SAR regulation. The agency would determine whether the exemption is consistent with the purposes of the BSA and with safe and sound practices, and may consider other appropriate factors.

The exemptions may be conditional or unconditional, may apply to particular persons or to classes of persons, and may apply to transactions or classes of transactions.

CUNA also called on NCUA to provide supplemental guidance on several outstanding questions in the proposal, including how a credit union would request an exemption and the timeline for the request to be granted or denied.