The NCUA board should vote Thursday to establish a floating interest rate ceiling, America’s Credit Unions Head of Regulatory Advocacy Ann Petros wrote all three board members prior to Thursday’s meeting. The board may establish a temporary, higher rate—currently set at 18 percent—for up to 18 months after considering certain statutory criteria.

The NCUA should maintain the current 18% cap in the event it does not adopt a floating cap, Petros added.

“We support an 18% interest rate ceiling, but ultimately there is no reasonable fixed permissible interest rate ceiling the NCUA could establish that would permanently resolve the issues unnecessarily imposed on federal credit unions and their communities by the Federal Credit Union Act’s arbitrarily low 15% rate,” she wrote, adding the board could only resolve these issues permanently with a floating permissible interest rate ceiling.

Petros also noted a floating interest rate would enable federal credit unions to “more fairly and fully serve their communities in every interest rate environment throughout economic cycles,” instead of maintaining the nearly 40 years of the 18% interest rate cap.

NCUA’s meeting will be livestreamed on NCUA.gov starting at 10 a.m. Eastern, the board will also vote on proposals related to succession planning and incentive-based compensation arrangements.