WASHINGTON – Credit union lobbyists on Wednesday were fighting a variety of amendments to the bank reform bill that pose threats to credit unions.
One amendment would limit fees charged at ATMs, another would regulate interchange credit card interchange fees and another still would bring credit unions with more than $1 billion in assets under the consumer financial protection agency if they make student loans.
"The amendments are coming fast and furious and we are fighting off the hostile ones and passing the good ones,” Dan Berger, chief lobbyist for NAFCU, told Credit Union Journal last night.
Early in yesterday’s debate CUNA and NAFCU teamed up to convince Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine to sponsor an amendment that eventually passed to exempt credit unions and banks from proposed data collection requirements on deposits. “We believe the existing NCUA data collection program provides sufficient information on members' income levels and services provided and that additional data collection from credit unions in these areas would be redundant and burdensome,” said Ryan Donovan, senior lobbyist for CUNA.
But several other amendments were emerging that could harm credit unions or add to their regulatory burden.
CUNA and NAFCU joined the banks to oppose an amendment to regulate interchange fees.
And NAFCU expressed its opposition to a proposal to bring credit unions with more than $1 billion in assets that are making student loans under the proposed consumer financial protection agency. “Subjecting credit unions that provide student loans to additional regulatory burdens, combined with the recent Congressional elimination of the Federal Family Education Loan Program, which had enabled credit unions to offer government-backed student loans to their members and customers, could lead to fewer credit unions making student loans,” NAFCU President Fred Becker said in a letter to Senate leaders late yesterday.
Another proposal opposed by credit unions would limit ATM fees to 50 cents per transaction.
