WASHINGTON – The credit union lobby was working over the weekend on amendments to the massive bank reform bill that would have lasting impact on credit unions by making permanent the increase in deposit insurance coverage, getting NCUA on to a consumer protection oversight panel and expanding the powers of lenders to make small dollar loans.
Industry representatives were working on Capitol Hill – where Senate debate on the bill is scheduled to continue Tuesday – and in home districts to register their opposition to a number of amendments that could pose significant threats to credit union revenues, including a bid to limit fees on ATM transactions and another to regulate credit card interchange fees. CUNA President Dan Mica threatened to pull his group’s support for the bill if the interchange amendment is added to it.
“We're on high alert to guard against interchange restrictions,” said John Magill, chief lobbyist for CUNA, noting that a powerful coalition of merchants and retailing groups are pushing for the interchange initiative.
NAFCU lobbyists were working in the Senate over the weekend on both offense and defense, according to its chief lobbyist Dan Berger. "NAFCU continues to have some success in getting amendments looked at, as well as playing aggressive defense on some hostile ones that are popping up,” said Berger, who added that NAFCU members are contacting Senate offices in their home districts to fight the amendment on interchange. That amendment, which has been introduced, but never passed, in separate bills, would allow large retailers to negotiate interchange fees directly with Visa and MasterCard, potentially lowering fee revenues for credit unions and banks.
The credit union lobbyists last week succeeded in getting an amendment to the bill that scrapped a provision that would have required credit unions and banks to report comprehensive data for all deposits to their regulator.
Later in the week they were working in an amendment that will give NCUA a seat on a commission that will oversee the proposed consumer financial protection agency.
The Senate this week is expected to take up a credit union-backed amendment that will make permanent the increase in federal deposit insurance coverage to $250,000 per account that is currently scheduled to expire in 2013.
The bill, which would create the consumer financial protection scheme, set an oversight of so-called too-big-to-fail financial institutions and regulate financial derivatives for the first time, is widely expected to pass the Senate, probably by the end of the week. “It's becoming increasingly clear that the big reg restructuring bill is about to ready to pass, short of some major blow-up,” said CUNA’s Magill.
