The American Bankers Association is trying to stop the National Association of Realtors from blocking banks again from engaging in real estate brokerage.
The Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to take up an amendment Thursday to a spending bill that would block the Treasury Department from finalizing a proposal to deem real estate brokerage financial in nature, thereby qualifying banks to offer the service.
The realty group has blocked the proposal's finalization through a series of one-year bans since it was offered in 2000.
Floyd Stoner, the ABA's chief lobbyist called the amendment "anti-consumer and anti-competitive" in a letter dated July 9 to Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. "Such language would reverse a core provision of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that was signed into law in 1999," he wrote.
