The Board of Directors of OAS FCU entrusts the Supervisory Committee with two critical duties: guaranteeing that management reports faithfully and clearly on the financial state of our Credit Union, and that the Credit Union’s policies, procedures, and practices protect the assets of the members.

The work of the Supervisory Committee

To fulfill our mandate, we of the Supervisory Committee use a series of measures and processes designed to oversee and ensure that the Credit Union is an efficient, compliant, and well-working financial institution. Our work helps management, and the Board of Directors reach their objectives, by assessing the sufficiency and effectiveness of management processes, by issuing recommendations for their improvement, and by consulting on their development.

As stewards of OAS FCU on behalf of the members, throughout the year we perform a series of tasks designed to test and try the abilities of our policies, procedures, and controls. They are, among others:

• Engaging and overseeing the yearly audits.
• Ensuring that any examiner/auditor recommendations are handled and adopted in an adequate, timely fashion.
• Investigating and addressing any complaints that we receive from you, the members of OAS FCU.
• Performing surprise, random cash counts at any OAS FCU office and ATMs.
• Ensuring that management implements the policies and procedures approved by the Board in compliance with all relevant and applicable regulations.
• Actively making sure that the Credit Union is always up to date and in compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act, Patriot Act, MAV Member account Verification and any other
• Reviewing internal controls using a variety of means.

The year 2023 in review

During the last year we continued our vigilance of the Credit Union, both online and in the offices. We assigned additional random cash counts to ensure that internal controls are working, and we hope to expand our areas of internal audit in the near future.

We also addressed any complaints and feedback that we received from our members via our website and online systems, as it is our duty.

The Committee ensured that the required external audits (financial, IT, electronic payments, compliance,) were conducted on schedule. Additionally, the required internal audits took place. Finally, we are overseeing the results of all the audits, such as the NCUA Fair Lending examination, the BSA, Safe act, UIGEA Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act Examination, the ACH Audit, and OFAC Office of Foreign Assets Control audits that took place last year, to ensure that the Credit Union addresses all recommendations.

Also, and aware that our members are making ever greater use of our services online, the Credit Union continued vigilance and verification of transactions, reporting to the Committee regularly.

In 2023, the Credit Union continued engaged communication with members through informative emails geared to minimize losses and delinquency during the year. We encourage you to subscribe to the Credit Union’s blog for periodic updates on fraud trends and cybercrime, and to visit the website’s “Education & Security” section to learn a little more about online security and privacy, and cybersecurity. In this education and security area you will also find a minisite on personal finance that may be of help.

Going forward

The staff of OAS FCU continues to serve members using a hybrid model, combining in-office and remote work, adapting to our members’ schedules in the buildings where we have offices. In 2023 our Member Services department started developing a new methodology, providing added and extensive staff training, and implementing a series of new digital communication tools to every member receive the same personal service online they would receive in person at one of our offices. This process of transformation will continue throughout 2024 as well. This is a move that we are very pleased to see in motion, and we of the Supervisory Committee look forward to testing their new capacities -digital and personal- during 2024 and 2025.

This Committee will continue to do its utmost in fulfilling the mandate entrusted to us by the Federal Credit Union Act to ensure that we provide a safe environment for the membership.

A warm thank you.

Finally, we would like to thank our members for the patience have shown during the transition after the pandemic, as well as the staff of our Credit Union for their continued efforts in 2023 until now to adapt and improve on these new ways of doing business.